Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt

Through a mixture of words and drawings, two award-winning journalists tell the stories of Americans surviving in the parts of the country most ravaged by capitalism, and the ways they manage to find hope

“As moving a portrait of poverty and as compelling a call to action as Michael Harrington’s The Other America.” —The Boston Globe

A New York Times Bestseller • A Washington Post Best Book of the Year

In this blend of rigorous journalism and graphic novel, Pulitzer Prize–winner Chris Hedges and award-winning cartoonist and journalist Joe Sacco set out to explore “sacrifice zones,” those areas in America that have been offered up for exploitation in the name of profit, progress, and technological advancement.

Beginning in the Great Plains, where Native American reservations bear the legacy of ethnic cleansing, Hedges and Sacco travel to some of the most neglected regions in the United States. They speak to families in Appalachia whose lives are subject to the whims of coal companies; they meet agricultural laborers who endure brutal working conditions and live below the poverty line. In each region, they seek pockets of optimism and resistance, from union organizers to neighbors who shelter each other, and ultimately end up in Zuccotti Park during the first days of the Occupy movement. Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt is the searing account of Sacco’s and Hedges’s travels.