The Impossible shows what it’s like to go up against Goliath and win–on battlefields from the 2024 South Korean coup, Putin’s prisons, South African apartheid, American slavery, and defeatism about climate change. Authors include Nelson Mandela, Alexei Navalny, Bill McKibben, Diane Ackerman, Jesmyn Ward, Howard Zinn, Heather Cox Richardson, Alice Walker, Sherman Alexie, Vaclav Havel, Paul Hawken, Rutger Bregman, Bill Moyers, Audre Lorde, Mary Pipher, Tony Kushner, Maya Angelou, Pablo Neruda, Marian Wright Edelman, Terry Tempest Williams, Desmond Tutu, and fifty-two other powerful voices. Without minimizing the obstacles, their stories inspire hope to keep on pushing for what we believe.

Request Complimentary Exam Copies: If you teach a relevant course or supervise a relevant program where The Impossible might be assigned, CLICK HERE to request your free examination copy of its wholly updated new edition. You can also request a free exam copy of Paul’s Soul of a Citizen, available through the same form. Or order either book if you don’t teach a relevant class but would still like a copy.

The book’s new version keeps the powerful voices of writers like Nelson Mandela, Vaclav Havel, Desmond Tutu, Maya Angelou, Pablo Neruda, Parker Palmer, Jonathan Kozol, Mary Pipher, and Alice Walker. New essays include how South Koreans stopped a December 2024 coup, Norwegian teachers successfully defied the Nazis, Alexei Navalny resisted from Putin’s prisons, and ordinary Chicago citizens created a model for cities to resist ICE. Plus the real Lord of the Flies story, lessons by Heather Cox Richardson from America’s anti-slavery movement, Bill McKibben on how the global explosion of renewable energy, and National Book Award winning novelist Jesmyn Ward on protest and grief. You can get a sense of the pieces from the attached. I’ve also completely updated my ten section introductions to speak to the current difficult historical moment. Those who’ve read the new edition find it a powerful antidote to despair.

If you are interested:

• Preorder copies and encourage campus libraries and bookstores as well.
• If you have a class where you might teach the book (or can think of faculty who’d be interested), sign up to preorder an academic exam copy. As many of you know, it teaches wonderfully and I’ve just updated the classroom study questions. Faculty who teach a relevant class or supervise a relevant program can preorder a free exam copy of the new one. If they might teach the book in fall, I can get even get you a preview if they fill out the order form and then email me.
• If your school might be interested in bringing me in to speak, please reach out to the relevant people, or email me for information.
• If you think of any other ways to get the book out, please let me know.

Table of Contents and descriptions.

Reviews and Quotes.

PAUL LOEB LECTURES—SELECTED RESPONSES.

We have free advance electronic academic exam copies of The Impossible Will Take a Little While’s new edition. It’s wholly updated and I think even stronger than the original. We’ll also have physical exam copies available in April, and I’ll email again when they’re available. But the electronic ones give you more lead time to consider it for fall adoptions. I’ve already heard from a couple of schools who’ll be using it for all their first-year students, and the earlier edition got wonderful responses in every conceivable department. Here’s the link again just in case your email program doesn’t display it:

https://www.netgalley.com/widget/open?widget_id=43718_52199_139299607753076eed4f774_9780465031733_US

And if you’d like to bring me in to speak in conjunction with the new release, when I can also brainstorm on how to engage your school in the fall elections, please get in touch.

Contact Paul at: loeb@soulofacitizen.org