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.
Luigi Galleani: The Most Dangerous Anarchist in America
Luigi Galleani: The Most Dangerous Anarchist in America
“In the vast panorama of research on the history of the Italian anarchist movement, a recent study on one of its leading figures was missing: Luigi Galleani. Thankfully, Senta has brought to light the authentic thought of Galleani (often mistakenly confused with that of his friends), his remarkable political intelligence, and his ability to understand his time and the world around him.” —Tobia Imperato, Umanità Nova
“Accurate and complete, this biography not only fills a historiographical void by incorporating and updating texts by previous authors ... but qualifies itself, above all, as original research conducted by amassing an important amount of archival material.” —Giorgio Sacchetti, A: rivista anarchica
Born in Vercelli in 1861, Luigi Galleani is considered, with Errico Malatesta, the most influential militant of Italian-speaking anarchism. First in Italy and then in the United States, where he arrived at age forty, he was well-known as a tireless thinker, agitator, and public speaker who attracted large numbers of workers to the revolutionary cause and, often, to acts of direct action and “propaganda of the deed.” Though frequently glimpsed in numerous histories of radical movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, little has been written about Galleani in English. This book, translated from the Italian, brings the fascinating biography of one of the most charismatic exponents of workers' struggles to a new audience. The result of a fruitful collaboration between Antonio Senta, a scholar of anarchist history, and Sean Sayers, a philosopher and Galleani’s grandson, it skillfully animates Galleani’s life and ideas, from his early life in Italy, though his time in America, to his deportation back to his homeland, where he was soon jailed by the Fascists. Senta’s portrayal of the man who edited the infamous Cronaca Sovversiva and inspired a movement of “Galleanisti,” which included such figures as the political martyrs Sacco and Vanzetti, provides a thorough introduction to the man and his times, one that will reward both scholars and activists.
Antonio Senta is a researcher in contemporary history at the University of Trieste (Italy). He has worked as an archivist for the International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam) and with several Italian anarchist archives. A well-known writer on the history of anarchism, his works include La pratica dell’autogestione, Elèuthera, Milano (2017 (with Guido Candela); L’altra rivoluzione. Tre percorsi di storia dell’anarchismo, (2016); Utopia e azione. Per una storia dell’anarchismo in Italia 1848-1984, (2015).