What The Reviewers Say

Positive

Based on 11 reviews

The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas

Gal Beckerman

What The Reviewers Say

Positive

Based on 11 reviews

The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas

Gal Beckerman

Rave
Simon Schama,
New York Times Book Review
Its title notwithstanding, The Quiet Before crackles with noise: Chartist orators whipping up support for suffrage... Futurist manifesto-shouters...white supremacists chanting.
Positive
Boyd Tonkin,
Financial Times (UK)
Like other works on the 'smart thinking' shelf that swing between cultural history and how-to manual, The Quiet Before scavenges past events and present trends on a pattern-seeking quest.
Positive
Susie Linfield,
The New York Review of Books
Beckerman’s wide range is impressive and makes The Quiet Before the most original book I’ve read in a long time.
Mixed
Barton Swaim,
Wall Street Journal
The book’s preliminary pages and dust jacket are replete with zealous endorsements from literary VIPs.
Positive
Carlos Lozada,
The Washington Post
... a quirky, delightful mix of a book that explores the intellectual impulses behind a series of cultural shifts and political revolts occurring across continents and centuries.
Rave
Christopher Borrelli,
The Chicago Tribune
... excellent.
Positive
The Economist
... engaging.
Positive
Andrew Marantz,
The New Yorker
... wide-ranging, subtly ambitious.
Positive
John K. Collins,
The Winnipeg Free Press (CAN)
Anyone who wants to change the world should start by reading this thought-provoking book..
Rave
Publishers Weekly
[A] probing intellectual history.
Rave
Kirkus
Engaging.