We are living through difficult times, tough times, and we’re not alone. Genocide, catastrophic capitalist climate collapse, increasing inequality, unapologetic imperial dreams and white supremacist policies unleashed, fascism on the rise—people all over the world are suffering, they get hurt and they get hard. Our rage and our sadness for all the unnecessary suffering, while understandable, can easily lead to despair and worse. But despair is deactivating, distorting, and destructive—a weapon of the powerful. Activism is a necessary antidote to despair, and activism opens a practical space where hope can come alive. Join us in conversation with one of the most joyful freedom fighters we know: Vijay Prashad, director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research—a primer about everything that matters! Vijay is the author of forty books, including The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of Global South, and (with Grieve Chelwa) How the International Monetary Fund Suffocates Africa. He is an editor at LeftWord Books (New Delhi), Inkani Books (Johannesburg), and La Trocha (Santiago).