Demanding the Impossible

Peter Marshall

Description

Navigating the broad “river of anarchy,” from Taoism to Situationism, from Ranters to Punk rockers, from individualists to communists, from anarcho-syndicalists to anarcha-feminists, Demanding the Impossible is an authoritative and lively study of a widely misunderstood subject. It explores the key anarchist concepts of society and the state, freedom and equality, authority and power, and investigates the successes and failure of the anarchist movements throughout the world. While remaining sympathetic to anarchism, it presents a balanced and critical account. It covers not only the classic anarchist thinkers, such as Godwin, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Reclus and Emma Goldman, but also other libertarian figures, such as Nietzsche, Camus, Gandhi, Foucault and Chomsky. No other book on anarchism covers so much so incisively.

In this updated edition, a new epilogue examines the most recent developments, including “post-anarchism” and “anarcho-primitivism” as well as the anarchist contribution to the peace, green and Global Justice movements.

Demanding the Impossible is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand what anarchists stand for and what they have achieved. It will also appeal to those who want to discover how anarchism offers an inspiring and original body of ideas and practices which is more relevant than ever in the twenty-first century.

Sujets

• Left-libertarianism
• Socialism
• Labyrinth
• Encyclopedia
• Référence

Informations

• Publié par: PM Press
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781604862706
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

For Dylan and Emily
Demanding The Impossible: A History Of Anarchism Peter Marshall
ISBN: 978-1-60486-064-1 Library Of Congress Control Number: 2009901374
Copyright © Peter Marshall 1992, 1993, 2008 This edition copyright © 2010 PM Press All Rights Reserved
PM Press PO Box 23912 Oakland, CA 94623 www.pmpress.org
Cover design by John Yates/Stealworks
Printed in the USA on recycled paper.
P ETER M ARSHALL is a philosopher, historian, biographer and travel writer. He has written fifteen highly acclaimed books which are being translated into fourteen different languages. They include William Godwin, Nature’s Web, Riding the Wind, The Philosopher’s Stone and Europe’s Lost Civilization. His circumnavigation of Africa was made into a TV series. His website is www.petermarshall.net
From the reviews of Demanding the Impossible :
“Large, labyrinthine, tentative: for me these are all adjectives of praise when applied to works of history, and Demanding the Impossible meets all of them.’
G EORGE W OODCOCK , Independent
“I trust that Marshall’s survey of the whole heart-warming, head-challenging subject will have a large circulation … It is a handbook of real history, which should make it more valuable in the long run than all the mighty textbooks on market economics and such-like ephemeral topics.’
M ICHAEL F OOT , Evening Standard
“Infectious in its enthusiasm, attractive to read … There is more information about anarchism in this than in any other single volume.’
N ICOLAS W ALTER , London Review of Books
“Immense in its scope and meticulous in its detail … It covers every conceivable strand in the libertarian little black book.’
A RTHUR N ESLEN , City Limits
“A wide-ranging and warm-hearted survey of anarchist ideas and movements … that avoids the touchy sectarianism that often weakens the anarchist position.’
J AMES J OLL , Times Literary Supplement
“There’s no mistaking the fact that Demanding the Impossible is timely … a gigantic mural in which every celebrated figure who has ever felt hemmed in by law and government finds a place.’
K ENNETH M INOGUE , Sunday Telegraph
“Peter Marshall, clearly a convinced impossibilist, has set himself a sisyphean task. His book is a kind of model of what it talks about — a sphere of near-structureless co-existence, a commune or “phalanstery” for all the friends of libertarianism from Wat Tyler to Walt Whitman to Tristan Tzara.’
L ORNA S AGE , Independent on Sunday
“Peter Marshall’s massive but very readable survey … deserves a wide readership.’
A NTHONY A RBLASTER , Tribune
“The most compendious, most studied and most enlightening read of anarchist history.’
A NDREW D OBSON , Anarchist Studies
“Excellent … a lively and heartening study.’
R ONALD S HEEHAN , The Irish Press
“Reading about anarchism is stimulating, funny and sad. What more can you ask of a book?’
I SABEL C OLEGATE , The Times
“Interest in anarchy … was reawakened by the publication of Peter Marshall’s massively comprehensive Demanding the Impossible.’
P ETER B EAUMONT , Observer
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
William Godwin
Journey through Tanzania
Into Cuba
Cuba Libre: Breaking the Chains?
William Blake: Visionary Anarchist
Journey through Maldives
Nature’s Web: An Exploration of Ecological Thinking
Around Africa: From the Pillars of Hercules to the Strait of Gibraltar
Celtic Gold: A Voyage around Ireland
Riding the Wind: A New Philosophy for a New Era
The Philosopher’s Stone: A Quest for the Secrets of Alchemy
World Astrology: The Astrologer’s Quest to Understand the Human Character
Europe’s Lost Civilization: Uncovering the Mysteries of the Megaliths
The Theatre of the World: Alchemy, Astrology and Magic in Renaissance Prague
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Introduction
P ART O NE : Anarchism in Theory
1 The River of Anarchy
2 Society and the State
3 Freedom and Equality
P ART T WO : Forerunners of Anarchism
4 Taoism and Buddhism
5 The Greeks
6 Christianity
7 The Middle Ages
8 The English Revolution
9 The French Renaissance and Enlightenment
10 The British Enlightenment
P ART T HREE : Great Libertarians
11 French Libertarians
12 German Libertarians
13 British Libertarians
14 American Libertarians
P ART F OUR : Classic Anarchist Thinkers
15 William Godwin: The Lover of Order
16 Max Stirner: The Conscious Egoist
17 Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: The Philosopher of Poverty
18 Michael Bakunin: The Fanatic of Freedom
19 Peter Kropotkin: The Revolutionary Evolutionist
20 Elisée Reclus: The Geographer of Liberty
21 Errico Malatesta: The Electrician of Revolution
22 Leo Tolstoy: The Count of Peace
23 American Individualists and Communists
24 Emma Goldman: The Most Dangerous Woman
25 German Communists
26 Mohandas Gandhi: The Gentle Revolutionary
P ART F IVE : Anarchism in Action
27 France
28 Italy
29 Spain
30 Russia and the Ukraine
31 Northern Europe
32 United States
33 Latin America
34 Asia
P ART S IX : Modern Anarchism
35 The New Left and the Counter-culture
36 The New Right and Anarcho-capitalism
37 Modern Libertarians
38 Modern Anarchists
39 Murray Bookchin and the Ecology of Freedom
P ART S EVEN : The Legacy of Anarchism
40 Ends and Means
41 The Relevance of Anarchism
E PILOGUE
Reference Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Heiner Becker, John Clark, John Crump, Caroline Cahm, David Goodway, Carl Levy, Geoffrey Ostergaard, Hans Ramaer, and Vernon Richards for commenting on different chapters of this work. Tom Cahill and Graham Kelsey kindly provided me with materials. I am indebted to John Burrow for encouraging, many years ago, my interest in the history of anarchist ideas. I much appreciate the pioneering work in the history of anarchism undertaken by Paul Avrich, Daniel Guérin, James Joll, Jean Maitron, Max Nettlau and George Woodcock, although I do not always share their emphases or interpretations. In preparing the book for publication, the editorial advice of Philip Gwyn Jones has proved unfailingly perceptive and relevant.
My thanks are due to the staff of both the National Library of Wales and the British Library, and to the librarians of Coleg Harlech, the University College of North Wales, and the University of London for facilitating my research.
My children Dylan and Emily have been bemused by my work on something impossibly called ‘anarchism’, but have been an inspiring example of constructive anarchy in action. I am grateful to my mother Vera for first awakening in me a sense of justice and equality. My brother Michael has given his warm support at all times. Above all, I must thank Jenny Zobel for her constant help and encouragement during the composition of this long study; only she knows the depth of my indebtedness. My friends Richard Feesey, Jeremy Gane, Graham Hancock, David Lea, and John Schlapobersky have in their different ways all inspired me to complete my task.
For this new edition, I have added an epilogue bringing anarchism up to date in the twenty-first century and given my own suggestions on the way forward.
I would like to thank John Clark in particular for his very perceptive and detailed comments. Ruth Kinna helped me with some materials. Elizabeth Ashton Hill kindly read the epilogue. My thanks also to Rosalind Porter and Essie Cousins at Harper Perennial and Ramsey Kanaan at PM Press who have brought out this new edition.
I welcome any readers’ comments on my website:
www.petermarshall.net
P ETER M ARSHALL , Little Oaks, July 2007
INTRODUCTION
A NARCHY IS TERROR , the creed of bomb-throwing desperadoes wishing to pull down civilization. Anarchy is chaos, when law and order collapse and the destructive passions of man run riot. Anarchy is nihilism, the abandonment of all moral values and the twilight of reason. This is the spectre of anarchy that haunts the judge’s bench and the government cabinet. In the popular imagination, in our everyday language, anarchy is associated with destruction and disobedience but also with relaxation and freedom. The anarchist finds good company, it seems, with the vandal, iconoclast, savage, brute, ruffian, hornet, viper, ogre, ghoul, wild beast, fiend, harpy and siren. 1 He has been immortalized for posterity in Joseph Conrad’s novel The Secret Agent (1907) as a fanatic intent on bringing down governments and civilized society.
Not surprisingly, anarchism has had a bad press. It is usual to dismiss its ideal of pure liberty at best as utopian, at worst, as a dangerous chimera. Anarchists are dismissed as subversive madmen, inflexible extremists, dangerous terrorists on the one hand, or as naive dreamers and gentle saints on the other. President Theodore Roosevelt declared at the end of the nineteenth century: ‘Anarchism is a crime against the whole human race and all mankind should band against anarchists.’ 2
In fact, only a tiny minority of anarchists have practised terror as a revolutionary strategy, and then chiefly in the 1890s when there was a spate of spectacular bombings and political assassinations during a period of complete despair. Although often associated with violence, historically anarchism has been far less violent than other political creeds, and appears as a feeble youth pushed out of the way by the inarching hordes of fascists and authoritarian communists. It has