Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt

by Chris Hedges, Joe Sacco

Overview

"A profoundly disquieting (and downright shocking) portrait of modern America" (The Times) that takes readers across the country to discover the toll of capitalism 

In 2010, Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges and award-winning cartoonist and journalist Joe Sacco set out to take a look at the sacrifice zones, those areas in America that have been offered up for exploitation in the name of profit, progress, and technological advancement. They wanted to show in words and drawings what life looks like in places where the marketplace rules without constraints, where human beings and the natural world are used and then discarded to maximize profit. Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt is the searing account of their travels.

The book starts in the western plains, where Native Americans were sacrificed in the giddy race for land and empire. It moves to the old manufacturing centers and coal fields that fueled the industrial revolution, but now lie depleted and in decay. It follows the steady downward spiral of American labor into the nation's produce fields and ends in Zuccotti Park where a new generation revolts against a corporate state that has handed to the young an economic, political, cultural and environmental catastrophe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781568588247
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	04/08/2014
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	250,332
Product dimensions:	6.70(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. He spent nearly two decades as a correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans, with fifteen years at the New York Times. He is the author of numerous bestselling books, including Empire of Illusion; Death of the Liberal Class; War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning; and Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, which he co-wrote with Joe Sacco. He writes the weekly Substack, The Chris Hedges Report. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

Editorial Reviews

"Sacco's sections are uniformly brilliant. The tone is controlled, the writing smart, the narration neutral…. This is an important book.”—New York Times Book Review

"An unabashedly polemic, angry manifesto that is certain to open eyes, intensify outrage and incite argument about corporate greed. Through immersion reportage and graphic narrative, the duo illuminate the human and environmental devastation in those communities, with the warning that no one is immune. A call for a new American revolution, passionately proclaimed.”—Kirkus, Starred Review

"Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt is a journey through contemporary American misery and what can be done to change the course, interpreted through the eyes of two of today's most relevant literary journalists. The graphics illustrate what words alone cannot, capturing a past as it's told, where there's no longer anything left to photograph.”—Asbury Park Press

"The book is a primer for every American who is overwhelmed by the uncertainty of the stock market, who wonders where America's muscle went, and how much heavy lifting our kids will face.” —Seattle Times

"This is a book that should warm the hearts of political activists such as Naomi Klein or the nonagenerian Pete Seeger. And cause apoplexy among the Tea Party and its fellow travelers. Sure, it's a polemic, but it's a polemic with a human face.”—Globe and Mail

"Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt is, without question, the most profoundly disquieting (and downright shocking) portrait of modern America in recent years, and one that is essential reading for anyone wanting to comprehend the quotidian struggle of what sociologists called the underclass. To describe the book as Dickensian in its horror-show reports of frontline industrial decrepitude and socio-economic dysfunction is to engage in understatement. Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt is unapologetically combative and profoundly J'accuse. And though many a conservative think-tanker could try to punch holes in its arguments no one can remain unmoved or unsettled by its brilliantly documented reportage from the precipice of a society that prefers to turn a blind eye to its nightmarish underside.”

 —The Times of London

"Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt  is as moving a portrait of poverty."—Boston Globe

"This searing indictment of our unsustainable society is unsettling. To keep our chance for dignity, we must do our part to champion the organizers and whistleblowers, committee members and protesters. Amen. Pass the word.”—Brooklyn Rail

 "A bleak, fist-shaking look at the effects of global capitalism in the United States.”
 —Joe Gross, Austin American-Statesman

"As quixotic as the quest may seem, Days of Destruction brings the rhetoric and the reality into a nobler focus after a very disturbing tour.”

 —The Star-Ledger (New Jersey)

From the Publisher

An unabashedly polemic, angry manifesto that is certain to open eyes, intensify outrage and incite argument about corporate greed. In the proud populist tradition of Howard Zinn (whose A People's History of the United States provides a foundation for this book), a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and a renowned cartoonist combine their talents for an illumination of the American underbelly, as the exploitation of a perpetual (and growing) underclass makes the "sacrifice zones" of global capitalism seem like Dante's circles of hell. Truthdig columnist Hedges (Death of the Liberal Class, 2010) was a foreign correspondent for the New York Times and other newspapers, though he plainly feels that advocacy can come closer to the truth than what passes for journalistic objectivity. Sacco (Journalism, 2012, etc.) shared the American Book Award for Palestine (2002) and has subsequently earned considerable acclaim for his graphic narratives of war zones. Though the team has plenty of experience with international warfare, the war they document here is in America, where "[c]orporate capitalism will, quite literally, kill us, as it has killed Native Americans, African Americans trapped in our internal colonies in the inner cities, those left behind in the devastated coalfields, and those who live as serfs in our nation's produce fields." Through immersion reportage and graphic narrative, the duo illuminate the human and environmental devastation in those communities, with the warning that no one is immune. "The ruthless hunt for profit creates a world where everything and everyone is expendable…it has enriched a tiny global elite that has no loyalty to the nation-state," writes Hedges. "These corporations, if we use the language of patriotism, are traitors." While finding some surprising pockets of hope within communities that are otherwise steeped in despair, the pair reserve their concluding glimmer of optimism for the Occupy movement. Otherwise, they find no hope in politics as usual, depicting Democrats and Republicans as equally complicit in policies that benefit the few at the expense of the many. A call for a new American revolution, passionately proclaimed.

Kirkus Reviews