
Study Guide: A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit
SuperSummary
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $6.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Molly Gallegos
-
By:
-
SuperSummary
About this listen
SuperSummary, a modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, offers high-quality instructional study guides for challenging works of literature. This audio study guide for A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit includes detailed summary and analysis of each chapter and an in-depth exploration of the book’s multiple symbols, motifs, and themes such as the consequences of beliefs, and human nature as plural and contingent. Featured content also includes commentary on major characters, 25 important quotes, essay questions, and discussion topics.
Acclaimed author, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit was inspired to write this nonfiction book after living through the Loma Prieta earthquake in California and feeling surprised at the positive emotions she and others felt during and after the event. By examining disasters from the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 to Hurricane Katrina, Solnit hopes to illuminate the paradise of goodwill and cooperation for which people already have the capacity, especially glimpsed in the hellish circumstances of disaster.
This audio study guide presents the same expert content - written by experienced teachers, professors, and literary scholars - in an easy-to-access audio format. SuperSummary study guides demonstrate an authoritative voice, present expert analysis, offer big picture ideas, and help listeners understand a work’s underlying meanings and conclusions.
©2020 SuperSummary (P)2021 SuperSummaryListeners also enjoyed...
-
A Paradise Built in Hell
- The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster
- By: Rebecca Solnit
- Narrated by: Emily Beresford
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Paradise Built in Hell is an investigation of the moments of altruism, resourcefulness, and generosity that arise amid disaster's grief and disruption and considers their implications for everyday life. It points to a new vision of what society could become - one that is less authoritarian and fearful, more collaborative and local.
-
-
Eye opening and thought provoking
- By zachery on 10-09-15
By: Rebecca Solnit
-
The Identity Trap
- A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time
- By: Yascha Mounk
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For much of history, societies have violently oppressed ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities. It is no surprise that many who passionately believe in social justice came to believe that members of marginalized groups need to take pride in their identity to resist injustice.
-
-
May It Mark A Turning Point
- By Larry on 09-28-23
By: Yascha Mounk
-
American Marxism
- By: Mark R. Levin
- Narrated by: Jeremy Lowell, Mark R. Levin
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2009, Mark R. Levin galvanized conservatives with his unforgettable manifesto Liberty and Tyranny, by providing a philosophical, historical, and practical framework for halting the liberal assault on Constitution-based values. That book was about standing at the precipice of progressivism’s threat to our freedom, and now, over a decade later, we’re fully over that precipice and paying the price. In American Marxism, Levin explains how the core elements of Marxist ideology are now pervasive in American society and culture.
-
-
An articulate and point by point analysis of current affairs
- By Ricky_Savage on 07-13-21
By: Mark R. Levin
-
How Fascism Works
- The Politics of Us and Them
- By: Jason Stanley
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the child of refugees of World War II Europe and a renowned philosopher and scholar of propaganda, Jason Stanley has a deep understanding of how democratic societies can be vulnerable to fascism: Nations don’t have to be fascist to suffer from fascist politics. In fact, fascism’s roots have been present in the United States for more than a century.
-
-
A Warning Too Clear to Ignore
- By Chip Auger on 10-30-18
By: Jason Stanley
-
Strange New World
- How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution
- By: Carl R. Trueman, Ryan T. Anderson - foreword
- Narrated by: Carl R. Trueman
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How did the world arrive at its current, disorienting state of identity politics, and how should the church respond? Historian Carl R. Trueman discusses how influences ranging from traditional institutions to technology and pornography moved modern culture toward an era of "expressive individualism." Investigating philosophies from the Romantics, Nietzsche, Marx, Wilde, Freud, and the New Left, he outlines the history of Western thought to the distinctly sexual direction of present-day identity politics and explains the modern implications of these ideas.
-
-
Read and reread
- By Daniel on 04-04-22
By: Carl R. Trueman, and others
-
Called to Freedom: Why You Can Be Christian and Libertarian
- By: Elise Daniel, Norman Horn
- Narrated by: Jacqueline Isaacs
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Conservatism, Republican politics, and traditional Christianity are thought by some to go together like baseball and apple pie. Yet, for a growing number of people, libertarian political thought provides an alternative to the traditional Christian right. That number includes the six young authors of this book who explore and expound the case that one can be both a Christian and a libertarian.
-
-
Needs Improvement
- By Douglas Morton on 02-07-21
By: Elise Daniel, and others
-
A Paradise Built in Hell
- The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster
- By: Rebecca Solnit
- Narrated by: Emily Beresford
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Paradise Built in Hell is an investigation of the moments of altruism, resourcefulness, and generosity that arise amid disaster's grief and disruption and considers their implications for everyday life. It points to a new vision of what society could become - one that is less authoritarian and fearful, more collaborative and local.
-
-
Eye opening and thought provoking
- By zachery on 10-09-15
By: Rebecca Solnit
-
The Identity Trap
- A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time
- By: Yascha Mounk
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For much of history, societies have violently oppressed ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities. It is no surprise that many who passionately believe in social justice came to believe that members of marginalized groups need to take pride in their identity to resist injustice.
-
-
May It Mark A Turning Point
- By Larry on 09-28-23
By: Yascha Mounk
-
American Marxism
- By: Mark R. Levin
- Narrated by: Jeremy Lowell, Mark R. Levin
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2009, Mark R. Levin galvanized conservatives with his unforgettable manifesto Liberty and Tyranny, by providing a philosophical, historical, and practical framework for halting the liberal assault on Constitution-based values. That book was about standing at the precipice of progressivism’s threat to our freedom, and now, over a decade later, we’re fully over that precipice and paying the price. In American Marxism, Levin explains how the core elements of Marxist ideology are now pervasive in American society and culture.
-
-
An articulate and point by point analysis of current affairs
- By Ricky_Savage on 07-13-21
By: Mark R. Levin
-
How Fascism Works
- The Politics of Us and Them
- By: Jason Stanley
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the child of refugees of World War II Europe and a renowned philosopher and scholar of propaganda, Jason Stanley has a deep understanding of how democratic societies can be vulnerable to fascism: Nations don’t have to be fascist to suffer from fascist politics. In fact, fascism’s roots have been present in the United States for more than a century.
-
-
A Warning Too Clear to Ignore
- By Chip Auger on 10-30-18
By: Jason Stanley
-
Strange New World
- How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution
- By: Carl R. Trueman, Ryan T. Anderson - foreword
- Narrated by: Carl R. Trueman
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How did the world arrive at its current, disorienting state of identity politics, and how should the church respond? Historian Carl R. Trueman discusses how influences ranging from traditional institutions to technology and pornography moved modern culture toward an era of "expressive individualism." Investigating philosophies from the Romantics, Nietzsche, Marx, Wilde, Freud, and the New Left, he outlines the history of Western thought to the distinctly sexual direction of present-day identity politics and explains the modern implications of these ideas.
-
-
Read and reread
- By Daniel on 04-04-22
By: Carl R. Trueman, and others
-
Called to Freedom: Why You Can Be Christian and Libertarian
- By: Elise Daniel, Norman Horn
- Narrated by: Jacqueline Isaacs
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Conservatism, Republican politics, and traditional Christianity are thought by some to go together like baseball and apple pie. Yet, for a growing number of people, libertarian political thought provides an alternative to the traditional Christian right. That number includes the six young authors of this book who explore and expound the case that one can be both a Christian and a libertarian.
-
-
Needs Improvement
- By Douglas Morton on 02-07-21
By: Elise Daniel, and others
-
Morality
- Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times
- By: Jonathan Sacks
- Narrated by: Jonathan Sacks
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With liberal democracy embattled, public discourse grown toxic, family life breaking down, and drug abuse and depression on the rise, many fear what the future holds. In Morality, respected faith leader and public intellectual Jonathan Sacks traces today's crisis to our loss of a strong, shared moral code and our elevation of self-interest over the common good.
-
-
The world needs to read this!
- By Isaac W on 02-11-21
By: Jonathan Sacks
-
How to Be a Conservative
- By: Roger Scruton
- Narrated by: Kris Dyer
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Roger Scruton’s How to be a Conservative presents the case for modern conservatism not in the terms of an elegy but rather as a practical example of how to live as a conservative despite the pressures to live otherwise. As he writes, the book ‘is not about what we have lost, but about what we have retained, and how to hold on to it’. In this witty and frank account, Scruton draws on his years of experience as a counter-cultural presence in public life.
By: Roger Scruton
-
Race Matters, 25th Anniversary
- By: Cornel West
- Narrated by: Cornel West, JD Jackson
- Length: 4 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in 1993, on the one-year anniversary of the Los Angeles riots, Race Matters became a national best seller that has gone on to sell more than half a million copies. This classic treatise on race contains Dr. West's most incisive essays on the issues relevant to black Americans, including the crisis in leadership in the Black community, Black conservatism, Black-Jewish relations, myths about Black sexuality, and the legacy of Malcolm X.
-
-
Classic that deserves better reading and recording
- By WritingMachine on 02-05-18
By: Cornel West
-
How to Survive the Apocalypse
- Zombies, Cylons, Faith, and Politics at the End of the World
- By: Robert Joustra, Alissa Wilkinson
- Narrated by: Gabrielle de Cuir
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The world is going to hell. So begins this book, pointing to the prevalence of apocalypse - cataclysmic destruction and nightmarish end-of-the-world scenarios - in contemporary entertainment.
-
-
Media teaches us about what it means human
- By Adam Shields on 09-19-17
By: Robert Joustra, and others
-
Identity
- The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment
- By: Francis Fukuyama
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2014, Francis Fukuyama wrote that American institutions were in decay, as the state was progressively captured by powerful interest groups. Two years later, his predictions were borne out by the rise to power of a series of political outsiders whose economic nationalism and authoritarian tendencies threatened to destabilize the entire international order. These populist nationalists seek direct charismatic connection to “the people”, who are usually defined in narrow identity terms that offer an irresistible call to an in-group and exclude large parts of the population as a whole.
-
-
Robotic narrator
- By Shahin on 09-19-18
By: Francis Fukuyama
-
Reappraisals
- Reflections on the Forgotten 20th Century
- By: Tony Judt
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 16 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The accelerating changes of the past generation have been accompanied by a similarly accelerated amnesia. The 20th century has become "history" at an unprecedented rate. The world of 2007 was so utterly unlike that of even 1987, much less any earlier time, that we have lost touch with our immediate past even before we have begun to make sense of it - and the results are proving calamitous.
-
-
Superb. Insightful essays, Performance to match
- By Louis on 05-02-12
By: Tony Judt
-
Healing the Heart of Democracy
- The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit
- By: Parker J. Palmer
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At a critical time in American life, Parker J. Palmer looks with realism and hope at how to deal with our political tensions for the sake of the common good - without the shouting, blaming, or defaming so common in our politics today.
-
-
Very well and thoughtfully done
- By BrokenOne on 04-22-25
By: Parker J. Palmer
-
Against the Web
- A Cosmopolitan Answer to the New Right
- By: Michael Brooks
- Narrated by: Sam Seder
- Length: 2 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the host of The Michael Brooks Show and cohost of the Majority Report, Brooks was a progressive fighter whose work brought people together from around the world. In this, his first book, he lets his understanding of the digital media environment direct his analysis of the "conservative rebels" who had taken YouTube by storm in 2018. Brooks provides a theoretically rigorous but accessible critique of the most prominent "renegades," including Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, and Brett Weinstein while also examining the social, political, and media environment that such rebels thrive in.
-
-
REST IN POWER MICHAEL BROOKS
- By illiterate/left-handed/Aries on 06-13-23
By: Michael Brooks
-
Conservatism
- An Invitation to the Great Tradition
- By: Roger Scruton
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 4 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Conservatism, Roger Scruton offers listeners an invitation into the world of political philosophy by explaining the history and evolution of the conservative movement over the centuries. With the clarity and authority of a gifted teacher, he discusses the ideology's perspective on civil society, the rule of law, freedom, morality, property, rights, and the role of the state. In a time when many claim that conservatives lack a unified intellectual belief system, this book makes a very strong case to the contrary, one that politically-minded listeners will find compelling and refreshing.
-
-
Better studied...
- By Mao Dom on 08-03-19
By: Roger Scruton
-
Reclaiming Patriotism in an Age of Extremes
- By: Steven B. Smith
- Narrated by: Mack Sanderson
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A rediscovery of patriotism as a virtue in line with the core values of democracy in an extremist age.
-
-
Everyone should read this.
- By EDWARD M. PIKULA on 04-20-21
By: Steven B. Smith
-
The Light That Failed
- Why the West Is Losing the Fight for Democracy
- By: Ivan Krastev, Stephen Holmes
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why did the West, after winning the Cold War, lose its political balance? In the early 1990s, hopes for the eastward spread of liberal democracy were high. And yet the transformation of Eastern European countries gave rise to a bitter repudiation of liberalism itself, not only there but also back in the heartland of the West. In this brilliant work of political history, Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes argue that the supposed end of Communism turned out to be only the beginning of the age of the autocrat.
-
-
Great text
- By Safronov on 05-03-21
By: Ivan Krastev, and others
-
We Stand Divided
- The Rift Between American Jews and Israel
- By: Daniel Gordis
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Relations between the American Jewish community and Israel are at an all-time nadir. Since Israel’s founding 70 years ago, particularly as memory of the Holocaust and of Israel’s early vulnerability has receded, the divide has grown only wider. Most explanations pin the blame on Israel’s handling of its conflict with the Palestinians, Israel’s attitude toward non-Orthodox Judaism, and Israel’s dismissive attitude toward American Jews in general. In short, the cause for the rupture is not what Israel is; it’s what Israel does.
-
-
Jews Will Argue With Each Other
- By Benzion N. Chinn on 09-12-19
By: Daniel Gordis