Firebrands: Portraits of the Americas

“If you’re looking for new heroes, “Firebrands” is the book for you. …I was excited when I started reading “Firebrands.” I felt happy to be alive, to have shared or to be sharing a world with these people and people like them. I felt and still feel inspired to always ask myself what values and ideals are important enough for me to take these kinds of risks and to always try my best to live up to them. I like this book, it feels good in my hands, it makes me smile and I love the artwork that accompanies each profile … ” –“Cuntlove”

.”.. I was also impressed by the book’s genuine inclusiveness–it covered a wide array of warriors, artists, leaders, and it did so while pushing beyond the typical inclusive” boundaries. For example, as a sex-positive activist I was thrilled to note that the painter Frida Kahlo was acknowledged to be both bisexual and polyamorous. The illustrations add a lot to “Firebrands”. I particularly love the images by Roger Peet. It goes with the last biography in the book, Zumbi dos Palmares, a Portuguese slave in Brazil who led an insurrection in the 1600s. “Firebrands” was produced by an artists’ cooperative called Justseeds, and it’s clear that the whole group pitched in for this book and thought carefully about each element. So you could benefit a bunch of artists by giving this charming collection as a gift! What’s not to love?” –“Elevate Difference”

“Curated by the Justseeds Artists’ Collective, “Firebrands” is 192 pages of art, world history, and dangerous information. These beautifully illustrated mini-poster pages showcase radicals, dissidents, folk singers, and rabble-rousers, from Emma Goldman to Tupac, Pablo Neruda to Fred Hampton. As say editors Shaun Slifer and Bec Young in the introduction, the book ‘is especially made for anyone who has sat, trembling with frustration and disappointment in history class, or reading a text book heavily edited of anything interesting or useful. It’s for all our ancestors, especially for the ones left out of or misrepresented in said textbook, because they were too brown, too female, too poor, too queer, too uneducated, too disabled, or because they felt or thought too much.’ This is a real people’s history, a book packed with dynamite, desire, and, above all, courage.” –“G20” Reading Week, Featured Book of the Day