How do you deal with the emotional toll of living in a time of dissolution? Social scientists use the term "polycrisis" to describe the kind of cascading, overlapping failures that can lead to systemic collapse, and it’s hard not to see the symptoms of a dying world order in events unfolding around us. But maybe what we’re witnessing is actually grounds for hope. In a forthcoming book "The Beginning Comes After the End," writer and activist Rebecca Solnit makes the case that something is dying, all right — because something better is being born. A rising worldview that embraces antiracism, feminism, environmental thinking, Indigenous and non-Western ideas, and a vision of a more interconnected, compassionate world.

Solnit is an engaged writer and intellectual in the tradition of Barbara Ehrenreich, Susan Sontag and George Orwell. Her new book picks up where her earlier bestseller “Hope in the Dark” left off — with an argument against despair and historical amnesia. In this conversation, we explore the extraordinary scale of progressive social, political, scientific and cultural change over the past century, the roots of Solnit’s stance of “pragmatic, embodied hope,” her thoughts on “moral wonder, “ and her years in San Francisco’s underground punk rock scene. She also tells us what she’d put in our own wonder cabinet: an AIDS Memorial Quilt square sewn by Rosa Parks.

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To The Best Of Our Knowledge — Tending a wartime garden: what Orwell’s fascination with roses tells us about the human need for beauty
Rebecca Solnit’s newsletter
Pre-order “The Beginning Comes After the End," due out March 3, 2026.

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00:00:00 Introduction

00:04:00 A Land Back Ceremony

00:08:05 Progress in Disguise

00:18:35 Hope and Interconnection

00:29:45 Defiant Hope

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Wonder Cabinet is hosted by Anne Strainchamps and Steve Paulson.

Find out more about the show at wondercabinetproductions.com, where you can subscribe to the podcast and our newsletter.

Wonder Cabinet is hosted by Anne Strainchamps and Steve Paulson. Find out more about the show at https://wondercabinetproductions.com, where you can subscribe to the podcast and our newsletter.