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| Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt (book) | |
|---|---|
| Name | Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt |
| Author | Chris Hedges, Joe Sacco |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Poverty in the United States, Journalism |
| Genre | Non-fiction, Graphic journalism |
| Publisher | Nation Books |
| Pub date | 2012 |
| Pages | 224 |
| Isbn | 9781568585895 |
Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt (book) is a collaborative non-fiction work combining reporting and graphic reportage by Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco. The book documents socio-economic decline and political marginalization across several U.S. locales through investigative prose and illustrated sequences. It connects contemporary conditions to historical processes, cultural institutions, and political movements, situating local case studies within national and international frameworks.
Hedges, a former correspondent for The New York Times and author associated with Noam Chomsky-style critiques, brought experience from coverage of conflicts such as in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Bosnian War. Sacco, known for graphic reportage like Palestine (comics) and Safe Area Goražde, contributed sequential art informed by documentary practice used in reportage by outlets including The Guardian and The New Yorker. The project emerged amid reactions to the Great Recession, the 2008 United States presidential election, and debates involving institutions such as Walmart, Bank of America, Federal Reserve System, and the International Monetary Fund. Editorial support came from publishers and periodicals connected to The Nation, Harper's Magazine, and independent presses that engage with movements like Occupy Wall Street and advocacy organizations including ACLU and Human Rights Watch.
Hedges and Sacco conducted fieldwork in places with histories linked to industrialization and policy shifts involving United States Steel Corporation, United Auto Workers, and Coal mining regions influenced by policies traceable to administrations such as Reagan administration and Clinton administration. Their research drew on archival sources from institutions like the Library of Congress and oral histories similar to collections at Smithsonian Institution.
The book is organized into five chapters, each centering on a distinct community: a Rust Belt city connected to companies like General Motors and US Steel, a Mississippi Delta town reflecting legacies of Jim Crow laws and plantation economies tied to the Cotton Belt, a coal town in Appalachia shaped by firms analogous to Peabody Energy and policies debated in United States Congress, a Native American reservation influenced by treaties such as the Treaty of Fort Laramie and institutions like the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and a gang-afflicted neighborhood in Kensington, Philadelphia reminiscent of urban crises covered in reporting on Chicago and Detroit.
Each section pairs Hedges's essays—drawing on techniques of long-form reporters like Seymour Hersh and Tracy Kidder—with Sacco's illustrated sequences that reference traditions from Art Spiegelman and Will Eisner. The narrative alternates between first-person immersion, interviews with residents comparable to subjects in Studs Terkel's work, and contextual exposition linking to events such as the Great Migration, the New Deal, and the Taft-Hartley Act.
Central themes include structural abandonment, deindustrialization, and the political marginalization of working-class communities, invoking analytic frameworks used by scholars associated with Karl Marx, Max Weber, and contemporary commentators like Naomi Klein. The book interrogates neoliberal policies connected to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, examines corporate consolidation exemplified by ExxonMobil and Koch Industries, and explores intersections with race and class as explored in studies by W. E. B. Du Bois and Michelle Alexander.
Hedges frames despair as fertile ground for radicalization, drawing parallels to insurgencies analyzed in works about Che Guevara and Mao Zedong while situating responses within U.S. political traditions, from Populist Party movements to contemporary activism represented by Black Lives Matter and Tea Party movement. Sacco's visual sequences utilize techniques from photojournalism practiced by figures like James Nachtwey to render trajectories of trauma, addiction, and institutional neglect reminiscent of ethnographies by Alice Goffman.
Published by Nation Books in 2012, the book received attention from mainstream and alternative media including reviews in The New York Times Book Review, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and progressive outlets like The Nation and Democracy Now!. It was discussed on programs such as Meet the Press and at venues including Harvard University and Columbia University. Critics praised the melding of reportage and comics, citing precedents in Persepolis and Sacco's earlier works, while scholars in fields represented by Sociology and Anthropology engaged its arguments in journals connected to Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press.
Criticism focused on perceived polemics in Hedges's prose and representational ethics in Sacco's images. Commentators from The Wall Street Journal, National Review, and scholars influenced by Milton Friedman questioned causal attributions linking policy to local decline, invoking debates traced to the Chicago School of Economics. Ethicists and journalists referencing codes of Society of Professional Journalists critiqued staging and subject consent; defenders pointed to traditions of participatory observation used by reporters like George Orwell and Hunter S. Thompson. Legal commentators connected disputes to libel discussions animated in cases like New York Times Co. v. Sullivan.
The work influenced documentary filmmakers associated with PBS and independent producers linked to Sundance Film Festival; themes resurfaced in documentaries about deindustrialization and poverty screened at Toronto International Film Festival and Tribeca Film Festival. It informed curricula at institutions such as New York University, University of California, Berkeley, and Princeton University and inspired activist networks aligned with Community Organizing traditions of Saul Alinsky and contemporary groups like Raise the Wage campaigns. The combination of text and graphics contributed to discussions about the pedagogy of graphic nonfiction alongside texts like Maus and Persepolis.
Category:2012 books