| Summary: |
"Psychologist, lecturer and activist Andrew Solomon's essays about places undergoing seismic political and cultural shifts, around the globe and across a generation. A testament to the importance of travel and bearing witness, they encompass South Africa and Brazil, China and Romania, Guatemala and the Solomon Islands, exploring history as it unfolds, largely through the people who are creating and being shaped by it. He learns from former political prisoners, transgender bartenders, rape victims, and shamans. He describes staring down tanks on the barricades in Moscow during the putsch that ended the Soviet Union, being left adrift at the Great Barrier Reef and brought in for questioning in Qaddafi's Libya, and carousing all night in Kabul with musicians finally able to play again after the US invasion drove away the Taliban. A life's journey to the nexus of hope, courage, and the uncertainty of lived experience, illuminating the development of Solomon's singularly insightful and empathetic worldview. These essays are rooted in intimate, deeply moving stories that reveal and revel in our common humanity. Andrew Solomon is a professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University and a regular contributor to The New Yorker, NPR, and The New York Times Magazine. He is the author of The Noonday Demon; An Atlas of Depression. His TED talks have been viewed over ten million times. He lives in New York and London. Visit the author's website at AndrewSolomon.com"--Provided by publisher. |
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