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.
Towards Anarchy: Malatesta in America 1899-1900 [The Complete Works of Malatesta vol. 4]
Towards Anarchy: Malatesta in America 1899-1900 [The Complete Works of Malatesta vol. 4]
“Sensitively edited by Davide Turcato, ably translated by Paul Sharkey, and with a magisterial introduction by Nunzio Pernicone, this volume in the series emphasizes the claim for this impressive project to be appreciated as a work of major scholarship ... Essential reading.” —Barry Pateman, historian, Kate Sharpley Library
"A major figure in Italy at the turn of the twentith century, Malatesta also significantly influenced Italian immigration to the United States. The publication of all his writings ... sheds light on a whole section of the history of both nations.” —Ronald Creagh, professor emeritus, Paul Valéry University
“Turcato’s monumental and timely collection gifts us the essential Malatesta—one of the world’s greatest anarchist thinkers and agitators.” —Norman Nawrocki, actor, musician, and author of RED: Quebec Student Strike and Social Revolt Poems
After escaping from forced residency on an island off the coast of Italy, Errico Malatesta (1853–1932) made his way to London and eventually Paterson, New Jersey, in 1899. There, he took over the surviving voice of Italian anarchism, La Questione Sociale. Experience had led Malatesta to suggest a radical change in tactics. He claimed that his goal was not to “accomplish anarchy today, tomorrow or in ten centuries” but to “walk toward anarchy today, tomorrow, and always,” laying the foundation of an original, gradualist vision of anarchism. His writing addressed the themes of organization, the anarchist program, freedom as a method, the problem of love, bourgeois influences on anarchism, and much more. This volume, incorporating articles on the American situation, unpublished interviews, and reports on French and Spanish conferences—such as those held in Cuba in March 1900—demonstrates the transnational dimension of Malatesta's activity, the breadth of his ideas, and his prominent role in labor and anarchist movements on both sides of the Atlantic. Includes an introduction by the late historian Nunzio Pernicone.
Davide Turcato is a historian of Italian anarchism and the author of Making Sense of Anarchism
Paul Sharkey has translated a vast body of anarchist writings from numerous languages into English.