A riveting personal memoir that shares hard-earned political insights. Ross’s journey begins on Air Force bases and in small, conservative towns in the American South. We follow his political and spiritual development from an Anabaptist peace community in the 1970s, through various forms of radical and countercultural politics, to the present-day failures of “revolutions” throughout Latin America, with a particular focus on the Bolivarian process in Venezuela. The book charts a path through good intentions, projects gone awry, and the shadow side of utopian dreams—ultimately locating hope in the social movements of ordinary people who resist the imposition of states and other actors that claim to represent them.