Solnit is the author of seventeen books as well as essays in numerous museum catalogs and anthologies . Her 2009 book '' A Paradise Built in Hell : The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster '' began as an essay called " The Uses of Disaster : Notes on Bad Weather and Good Government " published by '' Harper ’s '' magazine the day that Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf coast . It was partially inspired by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake , which Solnit described as " a remarkable occasion ... a moment when everyday life ground to a halt and people looked around and hunkered down " . In a conversation with filmmaker Astra Taylor for '' BOMB '' magazine , Solnit summarized the radical theme of '' A Paradise Built in Hell '' : " What happens in disasters demonstrates everything an anarchist ever wanted to believe about the triumph of civil society and the failure of institutional authority . " In 2014 , Haymarket Books published '' Men Explain Things to Me '' , a collection of short essays written about instances of " mansplaining . " Solnit has been credited with paving the way for the coining of the word " mansplaining , " which has been used to refer to instances in which men explain things ( generally toward women ) in a condescending and/or patronizing way , but Solnit did not use it in the original essay . Solnit 's book included illustrations from visual and performance artist Ana Teresa Fernández
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake
Rebecca Solnit