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A decade of American society coming apart.
Every Fire Needs a Little Bit of Help collects a decade of reflections on recent US struggles—Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and the George Floyd Rebellion—alongside accounts of the rise of Trumpism, the alt-right, an apocalyptic shift in popular culture, to paint a dense and complex portrait of a decade of protracted social crisis. Jarrod Shanahan reports from the ground. On the streets in 2014, from the depths of the Rikers Island penal complex, inside the alt-right underground and the carnival of Trump rallies, and in the line of fire in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 2020, among other scenes that Shanahan accessed not as a credentialed observer but an active participant: prisoner, infiltrator, activist. The resulting essays outline the pitfalls and opportunities facing those seeking to reverse the suicidal course of capitalist society and build a liberated world.
“These essays are political theory, cultural critique, movement memoir, and ethnographic study. Together, they are a crucial analysis of the decade of tumult that brought us here. Shanahan writes with brilliance, humor, and—above all—love, love for those who dream of better horizons and take to the streets to build them. Every Fire Needs a Little Bit of Help is a chance to reflect, to dream and to plot—a true gift to the Left.”
—Eman Abdelhadi, coauthor of Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072
“Rather than pondering politics from a distance, Shanahan writes from within the political moment itself. We find in these pages not simply an appraisal of America's slow decline into social anomie or even an activist account of recent political movements but instead a picture of history in all its murky motion, where the antipolice riot gives way to the Trump rally, while apocalyptic myths play out on TV. This book therefore offers both a treasure trove of careful observations tracking the trends of our chaotic moment and an example to be followed by others seeking real social change.”
—Phil A. Neel, author of Hinterland: America’s New Landscape of Class and Conflict
“A banger! Tracing the morbid symptoms of late capitalism and collective responses from Occupy Wall Street to the rise of the far-right and everything in between, Shanahan’s activism and writing remain deeply committed to building movements that demand ‘everything for everyone.’ Coming at a time of great despair and disillusionment with liberal politics, this collection offers today’s revolutionaries a sober analysis of past and present political experimentations, all the while remaining hopeful and engaged with our fiery future.”
—Zhandarka Kurti, coauthor, States of Incarceration: Rebellion, Reform, and America’s Punishment System
“Every Fire Needs a Little Bit of Help, and so do we. Jarrod Shanahan delivers on the promise. He is a fine writer, perhaps the best of his generation among far-left activists—a participant-journalist and a revolutionary who thinks while he acts. These essays are grounded in his experiences in mass mobilizations against police terror, some days and nights in jail, watching some good and not so good movies, and personal underground investigations into the alt-right. Because of his writing, we go where he goes. And we're all better prepared for what comes next.”
—John Garvey, editor of Race Traitor, Insurgent Notes, and Hard Crackers
“Searching, and hilarious—Shanahan writes from, about, and for the people. These essays document more than a decade of struggle and reflection from an expansive thinker and committed writer; Shanahan is a relentless and astute interpreter of the present American landscape.”
—Jack Norton, coeditor, The Jail is Everywhere: Fighting the New Geography of Mass Incarceration
“Protests against police and the carceral logic of racial apartheid in
the United States have swept the nation, from organized militant movements such as Stop Cop City in Atlanta, to protracted street battles in Ferguson, to widespread popular resistance during the George Floyd Rebellion. Every Fire Needs a Little Help offers an urgently
needed collection of essays written from the heart of this conjuncture, with crucial insights that will be necessary for navigating out of the liberal cooptation of struggle.”
—Danielle Carr, author of The Brains of the Living: the Rise, Fall, and Second Coming of Neural Engineering
“Alternately funny and furious, this collection is a radical guide to the history of the present—something we all need.”
—Malcolm Harris, author of What’s Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis
Part 1: Rupture
1. The Old Mole Breaks Concrete
2. Some Bullshit
3. Noel Ignatiev, 1940–2019
Part 2: The Rock
4. Checking Out
5. Days Spent Doing Too Much of Fucking Nothing
6. The Secret Lives of Rikers Island Jail Guards
7. The Surreality of Rikers Island
Part 3: Morbid Symptoms
8. Death to the Walking Dead
9. Friday the 1312
10. Zoomers Go to Hell
11. Hybrid Moments
12. The Future Belongs to the Mad
Part 4: Looking Right
13. Three Months Inside Alt-Right New York
14. Thankful for President Trump: Thanksgiving with Stop the Steal
15. The Big Takeover
16. Iowa Bluffs
Part 5: Every Fire Needs a Little Bit of Help
17. Every Fire Needs a Little Bit of Help
Afterword: Toward Something Else