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.
Anarchism in Latin America
Anarchism in Latin America
The available material in English discussing Latin American anarchism tends to be fragmentary, country-specific, or focused on single individuals. This new translation of Ángel Cappelletti’s wide-ranging, country-by- country historical overview of anarchism’s social and political achievements in fourteen Latin American nations is one of the few book-length regional histories published in English. With a foreword by the translator and an introduction by Romina Akemi and Javier Sethness-Castro.
“For the first time, English-language audiences have access to Ángel Cappelletti’s Anarchism in Latin America, one of the historiographical cornerstones of Latin American anarchism...an invaluable introduction to the hemispheric history of anarchism in Latin America. Gabriel Palmer-Fernández’s clear, skilled, and lucid translation includes an insightful introduction by modern scholar-activists that updates Cappelletti by expanding our understanding of how anarchists have dealt with feminist, environmental, and indigenous issues. This is a welcomed and timely book as anarchist ideas and movements once again surge throughout the Americas.” —Kirwin Shaffer, author of Black Flag Boricuas: Anarchism, Antiauthoritarianism, and the Left in Puerto Rico, 1897–1921
“The idea of ‘utopia’ was engendered by the European discovery of the Americas, and the continent has continued to be a site for alternative possibilities since then. Ángel Cappelletti’s book is an informative and uniquely handy work of reference." —Claudio Lomnitz, author of The Return of Comrade Flores Magón
“Progressives have long looked to Latin America for models of resistance and alternative political structures. However, we tend to see these models in a Marxist light. Anarchism in Latin America provides an important corrective, recounting the anarchist historical roots of some of the most important movements of our time.” —Todd May, author of A Fragile Life: Accepting Our Vulnerability
“This book will introduce American readers to the extraordinary history of anarchism among our southern neighbors.” —Staughton Lynd, co-author of Wobblies and Zapatistas: Conversations on Anarchism, Marxism, and Radical History
Ángel J. Cappelletti (1927–1995) was an Argentinian philosopher who taught at Simon Bolivar University in Venezuela. He is the author of over forty works primarily investigating philosophy and anarchism.
Gabriel Palmer-Fernández is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Youngstown State University.