Burn It Down!: Feminist Manifestos for the Revolution

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In this landmark collection spanning three centuries and four waves of feminist activism and writing, Burn It Down! is a testament to what is possible when women are driven to the edge. The manifestoraging and wanting, quarreling and provocativehas always been central to feminism, and its the angry, brash feminism we need now. Collecting over 75 manifestos from around the world, Burn It Down! is a rallying cry and a call to action. Among this quarrelsome sisterhood, youll find: Breanne Fahs argues that we need manifestos in all their urgent rawnesstheir insistence that we have to act now, that we must face this, that the bleeding edge of rage and defiance is where new ideas are born.

Reviews

An invaluable reminder of feminism's radical and revolutionary visions. It's also, to those least inclined to read it but most in need of doing so, a powerful threat. -- Soraya Chemaly, author of Rage Becomes Her
This exhilarating work of love and scholarship is a radiant gift to all who value liberation and justice. Reading it filled me with hope, inspiration and an electric connection to the angry, dissatisfied comrades who have come before me - as well my outraged contemporaries. A must-read, an antidote to powerlessness, a literary companion for the ages. -- Michelle Tea, author of Against Memoir
In an age of platitudes and etsy-fied feminist empowerment products, Breanne Fahs gives us the uncompromising, the unruly, the ungovernable, the unpalatable. This book is a fiery reminder that the world does not change, we change the world. -- Jessa Crispin, author of The Dead Ladies Project
This text is important historically and as a handbook for understanding and organizing today. Fahs has put together a collection that runs from the immediate and practical to the futuristic and abstract. In doing so, she reminds us that radical feminism is both utopian vision and practical argument. -- Ron Jacobs * Counterpunch *
Learned and impassioned ... irreverent, scabrous and enraged, these manifestos also happen to be full of contradictions, written in the heat of the moment and without a cool eye to posterity. But it's this rough-hewn immediacy that makes some of them so bracing to read, especially now. -- Jennifer Szalai * New York Times Book Review *
Editors' Choice * The New York Times Book Review *
Powerful and inspiring -- Nina Burleigh * Air Mail *
Magnificently cathartic...a reminder of the power and importance of taking a position, asserting your rights and expressing them forcefully - and that we can take strength from these positions, appreciate them, disagree, and argue the nuances with equal force and passion. -- Hettie Judah * i newspaper *
Burn It Down! sweeps through time and across the globe. -- Frankie Miren * New Socialist *
Any Gender Studies professor who isn't teaching Burn It Down! is missing something important in their curriculum. -- Megan Volpert, Best Books of 2020 * PopMatters *
An essential text for any time, but especially this one. -- Jane Caputi * Journal of American Culture *

Author Bio

Breanne Fahs is Professor of Women and Gender Studies at Arizona State University. She is the author of Performing Sex, Valerie Solanas, Out for Blood, and Firebrand Feminism, and co-editor of The Moral Panics of Sexuality, and Transforming Contagion. She is the Founder and Director of the Feminist Research on Gender and Sexuality Group at Arizona State University, and also works as a Clinical Psychologist.