A Terrible Act of Reason: When Did Self-Immolation Become the Paramount Form of Protest?
“Suddenly, self-immolation is everywhere,” writes James Verini for The New Yorker. “Yesterday, in Oslo, a man set himself on fire outside the Anders Breivik trial,” he notes. Detailing the history of self-immolation, one that spans from “Greco-Roman mythology” to current times from Asia to Morocco, Verini gives an expansive view of what has become “the preeminent act of defiance.”