Anarchism
Anarchism and anarchists and anything associated with the thinking, the people, or the history generally get a raw deal from the media and even mainstream historians. It is true that anarchism is profoundly anti-authoritarian, but its popular association with violence (wild-eyed bearded men throwing bombs) is exaggerated, even fictionalized by the very forces threatened by it, namely governments and the media with vested interests in things as they are.
As with any subversive political and economic movement, some proponents became impatient and felt justified in striking out in vengeance or justice. Thus you have Alexander Berkman and his attempted assassination of Pennsylvanian Henry Clay Frick in 1892 and Leon Czolgosz and his successful assassination of President William McKinley in 1901. Berkman, however, served his time in jail, wrote a deep and insightful account of his experience and went on to write more worthwhile books on the subject which possessed his life. (Czolgosz did not have that opportunity, being executed forty-five days after the death of his victim.)
Anarchism survived its dramatic beginnings in the 19th Century, however, and interested readers can find its articulate concern with agricultural reform, labor rights, and prophetic worries about the growth of the surveillance state in many excellent books. Here you will find books and a superb documentary on Sacco and Vanzetti (as well as Woody Guthrie's cd of his investigation into the miscarriage of justice). Here you will find histories, biographies, anthologies, memoirs, and fiction. It is a rich tradition, relevant to this day and to the future.
Classic Writings in Anarchist Criminology: A Historical Dismantling of Punishment and Domination
Classic Writings in Anarchist Criminology: A Historical Dismantling of Punishment and Domination
In recent years, social movements of all sorts have been redefining ideas of justice by exposing the social and economic causes of crime and calling for an end to punitive institutions such as prison, the death penalty, and migrant detention. Headline news about overcrowded prisons, for-profit prisons, prisoners exonerated after spending much of their lives behind bars, and the like have been feeding demands for prison reform and even abolition. This book demonstrates some of the historical origins of those ideas, which have been advocated by anarchists for over one hundred years. Anyone interested in the history of Critical Criminology, Restorative Justice, or Transformative Justice will find inspiration from this collection.