If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution cover art

If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution

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If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution

By: Vincent Bevins
Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
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About this listen

 'A stunning history of now' GREG GRANDIN
'Phenomenal . . . it would be criminally negligent not to read it if you'd like to change the world' ROB DELANEY

From 2010 to 2020, more people took part in protests than at any other point in history. But what type of change did they deliver?

From the so-called Arab Spring and Gezi Park in Turkey, to Ukraine's Euromaidan and student rebellions in Chile and Hong Kong, this decade was propelled by explosive mass demonstrations. If We Burn is a stirring global history guided by a single, puzzling question: how did so many mass protests lead to the opposite of what they asked for?


In this groundbreaking study of street movements and their consequences, acclaimed journalist Vincent Bevins weaves hundreds of interviews from around the world into a fast-paced, gripping narrative. Analysing both the successes and defeats, it allows us to understand our world in the present - and offers urgent lessons for the future.

More praise for If We Burn:
'The best book I read this year' EAMON WHALEN
'In searching for the missing revolution, Bevins may help others find it after all' LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS
'This book is outstanding' BENJAMIN MOSER
'Tremendous' INTERCEPT
'A bold vision of the future' MERVE EMRE
'A riveting, almost novelistic narrative' DAZED
'Critical lessons for activists both here and abroad' NEW REPUBLIC©2023 Vincent Bevins 21st Century Modern Political Science Politics & Government Latin American Socialism Iran Military War Middle East China Africa Imperialism Capitalism

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Critic reviews

This book is phenomenal. A thrilling, blow by blow (and often live on-the-ground) analysis of how the various people-led movements and revolutions over the last decade succeeded or failed. Incalculably useful to anyone who'd like to make substantive, enduring changes to their town, country or even the world. It's an incredible follow up to The Jakarta Method - which focused on the development of the CIA and the seismic and often horrific global consequences - and sees Bevins applying his near-heroic methods of investigation to more recent events. It's about as good as journalism gets and Bevins is uniquely positioned to get the goods, just due to the sheer amount of time he spends in the places he writes about, fostering relationships and suffering from unquenchable curiosity. I cannot think of a book that so soberly and forensically analysed the very recent past and looked at what went right and what went terribly wrong. The highest praise I can give If We Burn is to say that it would be criminally negligent not to read it if you'd like to change the world. And why wouldn't you? (Rob Delaney, author of A Heart that Works)
The best book I read this year. (Eamon Whalen)
In this remarkably assured and sweeping history of the present, Vincent Bevins asks some of the most urgent questions for contemporary life: How can a multitude of ardent, angry, and hopeful people harness their energies for profound political change? And what happens if they fail? If We Burn travels the world in search of an answer and, along the way, introduces us to the activists, hackers, punks, martyrs, and the millions of ordinary people whose spontaneous acts of bravery spurred the mass protests of the last decade. Bevins's clear-eyed, sympathetic account of the unfulfilled promise of these protests leaves his reader with a bold vision of the future - one in which his book's lessons are used to transform an uprising into a true revolution. (Merve Emre, Wesleyan University, critic for The New Yorker)
This book is outstanding. (Benjamin Moser, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Sontag)
Vincent Bevins' compelling new book, If We Burn, is a wondrous work of mystery writing, an effort to solve the riddle: why has a decade of large-scale rolling revolts produced no revolution, no significant structural reform? I can't think of any journalist other than Bevins who would dare to ask such a question, or be capable of weaving together seemingly discrete global events into a stunning history of now. Have we planted seeds for a better future or have the gears of change frozen for good? Bevins lets the people he talked to, those on the street, answer. (Greg Grandin, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The End of the Myth)
All stars
Most relevant
I liked the way the similarities and the differences between the various attempts at Revolution were pointed out.

An interesting review of the mass protests from 2010-2020

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A captivating account of protest and failure in a digital age, working expertly across languages and continents.

Important and timely

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Good book with interesting account though not as in depth as his other publication. Worth a listen.

Good follow up to Jakarta Method

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Bevins narrates a passionate & personal history of the protest decade, beginning 2010 & collapsing, 10 years later, into spent energy & authoritarian entrenchment. Ostensibly, Bevins book sets out to answer what went wrong, but the book also feels like a strongly felt mea culpa from a man who recognises his privilege & regrets his own role in the contagion.

Bevins begins by stewarding us through a clear eyed history of neoliberalism without shying from tricky assessments of contested events (look away if you want a simple good v evil narrative on the Ukraine invasion). He is quick to point out that he is a journalist not a historian, but in the tradition of Grossman he is a journalist, historian & participant. If academic freedom still persists 50 years now, Bevins’ book will surely prove a treasure trove of insights.

Bevins’ premise, told through his interviewees’ words, is that the collapse of the USSR bequeathed more than neoliberalism. It engendered fear of purposeful organisation that had characterised that earlier era. Coupled with the dazzling impact of global social media, spontaneous demonstrations sprang up, transmitted themselves memetically - then collapsed into disorder. Into this vacuum ran the old guard - organised, violent & directed. The stories we idiotically told ourselves in the West as we ‘Liked’ emotionally salient photos to signal our virtue are ruthlessly exposed in this account. We didn’t know it then but our interaction - our keyboard outrage - was building a monster that could be sold to the highest bidder & channelled against us. The protests failed. The tech companies soared. The new regimes - all too often headed by clown like media personalities - took over.

If there is a note of hope in Bevins’ book, it is this: we learn, we regroup, we keep going. The story is never over, it just passes to the next generation. I hope they will learn the lessons from this fantastic book.

A stunning & important study of a failed decade of protests

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This book covers the period of my political coming of age and the global struggles I watched unfold from the UK as a late teen into my twenties. These movements inspired my politics at the time however hearing them dissected and critiqued from participants is invaluable for really understanding them - and more importantly understanding how not to repeat the same mistakes!

Timely, insightful and persuasive history of the important political failures that defined politics for last decades.

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