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.
Take Bread: Early Writings on Political Violence
Take Bread: Early Writings on Political Violence
"They will go on robbing you, your children, and your children's children, unless you wake up, unless you become daring enough to demand your rights. Well, then, demonstrate before the palaces of the rich; demand work. If they do not give you work, demand bread. If they deny you both, take bread."
Imprisoned for inciting riot, blamed for fomenting the assassination of William McKinley, deported in the firstRed Scare, called the High Priestess of Anarchy, the Red Queen, the most dangerous woman in America-writer and revolutionary Emma Goldman was one of the most prominent and feared radical thinkers of her time.
Presented here are her early views on political violence, a nuanced collection comprehending the relationship between the individual violence of the revolutionary and the institutionalized violence that calls it forth.