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.
Property is Theft!: A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Anthology
Property is Theft!: A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Anthology
More influential than Karl Marx during his lifetime, Pierre-Joseph Proudon's work has long been out of print or unavailable in English. Weighing in at over 700 pages, Iain McKay's comprehensive collection is a much-needed and timely historical corrective, and includes a number of new translations of Proudhon's work for an English-speaking audience, as well as an exhaustive historical introduction to Proudhon's life and works.
"An indispensable source book for anyone interested in Proudhon's ideas and the origins of the socialist and anarchist movements in nineteenth-century Europe."—Robert Graham, editor of Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas"Iain McKay's introduction offers a sure-footed guide through the misconceptions surrounding Proudhon's thought."—Mark Leier, author of Bakunin: The Creative Passion
”In the English-speaking world, Proudhon is one of the best known but least well understood anarchists, largely because the bulk of his work is not available in translation. Iain McKay's comprehensive anthology, which draws on Proudhon's correspondence as well as his published work, fills a real gap and should encourage new readers to engage with his work and appreciate both the positive contribution he has made to anarchist thinking and the enormity of his influence on the anarchist movement.”—Ruth Kinna author of Anarchism: A Beginner's Guide and editor of Anarchist Studies
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1869) was one of the most important and influential political theorists of the 19th century. The first person to call himself an anarchist, he is the author of What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government; The System of Economical Contradictions (or, the Philosophy of Misery); and The General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century.