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.
Eclipse of Dreams: The Undocumented-Led Struggle for Freedom
Eclipse of Dreams: The Undocumented-Led Struggle for Freedom
After the DREAM Act failed, many young undocumented activists understood that pinning their hopes on a piece of legislation had been a bad idea. They also saw that the DREAM Act would have fragmented communities, families, and social movements, because it designated only a subset of immigrants as worthy of assimilation (and its rewards), while others, who often lived under the same roof, would be further criminalized.
Eclipse of Dreams creatively tells the stories of a new generation of young people, awakened “Dreamers” who see the injustice built into the American dream. Using a collective writing process, as well as testimonials, photography, poetry, and art, this book is an invitation to reconsider the myths we tell ourselves, in order to find another way forward for migrant justice and human dignity, one that might allow us all to recover our global humanity. From direct action to the infiltration of immigrant detention centers, these youth are leading a movement for human liberation.