Every Fire Needs a Little Bit of Help
A Decade of Rebellion, Reaction, and Morbid Symptoms
PM Press · Print & ebook · September 12, 2025
A decade of American society coming apart.
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- Who it’s for
- Jarrod Shanahan’s essays trace a decade of US struggle from streets, prisons, and political flashpoints.
- Genres
- Activism & Social Justice, 21st-Century America, Political Commentary
- Published
- PM Press, September 12, 2025
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For younger readers: Coming of Age in 2020, 1968: Today's Authors Explore a Year of Rebellion, Revolution, and Change, America Redux: Visual Stories From Our Dynamic History
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Start with this bookAbout this book
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.
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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.
A Decade in Crisis
Jarrod Shanahan’s essays trace a decade of US struggle from streets, prisons, and political flashpoints.
Come here for
- Reflections on Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and the George Floyd Rebellion
- Accounts of Trumpism, the alt-right, and social crisis
Expect
- Ground-level accounts from Rikers Island, Trump rallies, and Kenosha
- A portrait of rebellion, reaction, and social crisis
Where it sits
| Activism & Social Justice | 42% |
|---|---|
| 21st-Century America | 25% |
| Political Commentary | 21% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Communism & Socialism
- Anarchism
- Social Science Essays
- Authors
- Jarrod Shanahan, A.M. Gittlitz
- Publisher
- PM Press
- Published
- September 12, 2025
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Reading lane
- Communism & Socialism