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Anarchy, Geography, Modernity: Selected Writings of Elisée Reclus
Anarchy, Geography, Modernity is the first comprehensive introduction to the thought of Elisée Reclus, the great anarchist geographer and political theorist. It shows him to be an extraordinary figure for his age. Not only an anarchist but also a radical feminist, anti-racist, ecologist, animal rights advocate, cultural radical, nudist, and vegetarian. Not only a major social thinker but also a dedicated revolutionary. The work analyzes Reclus’ greatest achievement, a sweeping historical and theoretical synthesis recounting the story of the earth and humanity as an epochal struggle between freedom and domination. It presents his groundbreaking critique of all forms of not only capitalism, the state, and authoritarian religion, but also patriarchy, racism, technological domination, and the domination of nature. His crucial insights on the interrelation between personal and small-group transformation, broader cultural change, and large-scale social organization are explored. Reclus’ ideas are presented both through detailed exposition and analysis, and in extensive translations of key texts, most appearing in English for the first time.
304 pages, Paperback
First published March 27, 2004
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754 people want to read
About the author
Élisée Reclus
910 books55 followersÉlisée Reclus, also known as Jacques Élisée Reclus, was a renowned French geographer, writer and anarchist. He produced his 19-volume masterwork La Nouvelle Géographie universelle, la terre et les hommes ("Universal Geography"), over a period of nearly 20 years (1875 - 1894). In 1892 he was awarded the prestigious Gold Medal of the Paris Geographical Society for this work, despite his having been banished from France because of his political activism.
Reclus was the second son of a Protestant pastor and his wife. From the family of fourteen children, several, including his brother and fellow geographer Onésime Reclus, went on to achieve renown either as men of letters, politicians or members of the learned professions.
Reclus began his education in Rhenish Prussia, and continued higher studies at the Protestant college of Montauban. He completed his studies at University of Berlin, where he followed a long course of geography under Carl Ritter.
Withdrawing from France because of political events of December 1851, he spent the next six years (1852 - 1857) traveling and working in Great Britain, the United States, Central America, and Colombia. Arriving in Louisiana in 1853, Reclus worked for about two and a half years as a tutor to the children of Septime and Félicité Fortier at their plantation Félicité, located about 50 miles upriver from New Orleans. He recounted his passage through the Mississippi river delta and impressions of antebellum New Orleans and the state in Fragment d'un voyage á Louisiane, published in 1855.
On his return to Paris, Reclus contributed to the Revue des deux mondes, the Tour du monde and other periodicals, a large number of articles embodying the results of his geographical work. Among other works of this period was the short book Histoire d’un ruisseau, in which he traced the development of a great river from source to mouth. From 1867 - 1868 he published La Terre; description des phénomènes de la vie du globe in two volumes.
During the 1870 siege of Paris, Reclus shared in the aerostatic operations conducted by Félix Nadar, and also served in the National Guard. As a member of the Association Nationale des Travailleurs, he published a hostile manifesto against the government of Versailles in support of the Paris Commune of 1871 in the Cri du Peuple.
Continuing to serve in the National Guard, now in open revolt, Reclus was taken prisoner on April 5, and on November 16 was sentenced to deportation for life. Because of intervention by supporters from England, the sentence was commuted in January 1872 to perpetual banishment from France.
After a short visit to Italy, Reclus settled at Clarens, Switzerland, where he resumed his literary labours and produced Histoire d’une montagne, a companion to Histoire d’un ruisseau. There he wrote nearly the whole of his work, La Nouvelle Géographie universelle, la terre et les hommes, "an examination of every continent and country in terms of the effects that geographic features like rivers and mountains had on human populations—and vice versa," This compilation was profusely illustrated with maps, plans, and engravings. It was awarded the gold medal of the Paris Geographical Society in 1892. An English edition appeared simultaneously, also in 19 volumes, the first four by E. G. Ravenstein, the rest by A.H. Keane. Reclus's writings were characterized by extreme accuracy and brilliant exposition, which gave them permanent literary and scientific value.
Reclus was the second son of a Protestant pastor and his wife. From the family of fourteen children, several, including his brother and fellow geographer Onésime Reclus, went on to achieve renown either as men of letters, politicians or members of the learned professions.
Reclus began his education in Rhenish Prussia, and continued higher studies at the Protestant college of Montauban. He completed his studies at University of Berlin, where he followed a long course of geography under Carl Ritter.
Withdrawing from France because of political events of December 1851, he spent the next six years (1852 - 1857) traveling and working in Great Britain, the United States, Central America, and Colombia. Arriving in Louisiana in 1853, Reclus worked for about two and a half years as a tutor to the children of Septime and Félicité Fortier at their plantation Félicité, located about 50 miles upriver from New Orleans. He recounted his passage through the Mississippi river delta and impressions of antebellum New Orleans and the state in Fragment d'un voyage á Louisiane, published in 1855.
On his return to Paris, Reclus contributed to the Revue des deux mondes, the Tour du monde and other periodicals, a large number of articles embodying the results of his geographical work. Among other works of this period was the short book Histoire d’un ruisseau, in which he traced the development of a great river from source to mouth. From 1867 - 1868 he published La Terre; description des phénomènes de la vie du globe in two volumes.
During the 1870 siege of Paris, Reclus shared in the aerostatic operations conducted by Félix Nadar, and also served in the National Guard. As a member of the Association Nationale des Travailleurs, he published a hostile manifesto against the government of Versailles in support of the Paris Commune of 1871 in the Cri du Peuple.
Continuing to serve in the National Guard, now in open revolt, Reclus was taken prisoner on April 5, and on November 16 was sentenced to deportation for life. Because of intervention by supporters from England, the sentence was commuted in January 1872 to perpetual banishment from France.
After a short visit to Italy, Reclus settled at Clarens, Switzerland, where he resumed his literary labours and produced Histoire d’une montagne, a companion to Histoire d’un ruisseau. There he wrote nearly the whole of his work, La Nouvelle Géographie universelle, la terre et les hommes, "an examination of every continent and country in terms of the effects that geographic features like rivers and mountains had on human populations—and vice versa," This compilation was profusely illustrated with maps, plans, and engravings. It was awarded the gold medal of the Paris Geographical Society in 1892. An English edition appeared simultaneously, also in 19 volumes, the first four by E. G. Ravenstein, the rest by A.H. Keane. Reclus's writings were characterized by extreme accuracy and brilliant exposition, which gave them permanent literary and scientific value.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 24, 2019
The intro was (despite a couple critiques) great, and got me very excited to read Reclus' writings. The essays themselves were hit or miss—some were brilliant (the vegetarianism and progress ones, in particular), some were a snooze ("Modern Cities" did nothing for me). He's a colorful writer though, and there are some great one-liners.
July 10, 2021
Reclus es sin duda una de la almas más hermosas que han pisado Europa, su forma se entender la naturaleza y el papel de la humanidad en ella es sin duda bastante avanzada para su época. Además su compromiso militante y rigor científico (para la época) lo hacen una persona digna de ser leída
February 20, 2023
he tardado más de lo que me gustaría en leer este libro porque al parecer en el trabajo no se concentra una mucho, pero tiene cosas muy muy interesantes que siguen siendo relevantes teóricamente a día de hoy. eso sí, hay que pasarle el filtro de unas cuantas décadas en cuestiones de eurocentrismo.
me gusta saber que siempre ha existido otro tipo de geopolítica posible, alejada del asco que da la disciplina en su formato más extendido.
me gusta saber que siempre ha existido otro tipo de geopolítica posible, alejada del asco que da la disciplina en su formato más extendido.
September 6, 2023
Anarchy, Geography, Modernity: Selected Writings Of Elisèe Reclus
There is a fundamental structural problem with this book. It contains 230 pages or so of material, but the first 100 pages of the book consist of commentary from the editors and translators of the work, John Clark and Camille Martin, who seek to frame Reclus as being some sort of proto-feminist and proto-eco-anarchist in their own mold. Admittedly, for the purposes of their behavior Reclus is pretty convenient, in being obscure enough that he is neglected in mainstream political literature that seeks to deal with those who are left-of-center, so that someone can make space for themselves in contemporary academia by seeking to bring this hitherto unrecognized philosopher into greater attention as a forerunner of some of society's less benign intellectual trends. Similarly, he is not so advanced that the editors of this work cannot feel that sense of undeserved chronological snobbery about the language used by the French geographer and anarchist who they are translating and bringing before the attention of the world. He thus suits their purposes admirably in both respects as a forerunner but not someone who ran so far ahead of his time that he might embarrass the editors about their own provincial and regressive notions about philosophy and politics.
This book is some 235 pages or so of material, divided into two parts. Before both parts there are prefaces to the PM Press edition and to the first edition of the work. After that the first part of the book consists of an introduction to Reclus' social thought from the translators and editors of his work (I). This introduction consists of seven smaller chapters that take up a bit more than 100 pages, namely the story of the earth and humanity (1), Reclus' place as an anarchist geographer (2), his dialectic between nature and culture (3), his philosophy of progress (4), his views on social transformation (5), his critique of domination (6), and his legacy (7). The second part of the book then consists of selected writings from Reclus (II), namely, such works, largely in excerpted form, like "The Feeling For Nature In Modern Society (1866) (8), "To My Brother The Peasant (1893) (9), "Anarchy" (1894) (10), "The Extended Family" (1896), (11), "Evolution, Revolution, And The Anarchist Ideal" (1898) (12), "On Vegetarianism" (1901) (13), "The History Of Cities" (1905) (14), "The Modern State" (1905) (15), "Culture And Property" (1905) (16), "Progress" (1905) (17), and "Advice To My Anarchist Comrades" (1901) (18). After this the book concludes with notes, a bibliography, index, and information about the contributors.
Even when taking into account the structural problems of this work, there is a fundamental problem with the political worldview of an eco-anarchist of the stripe of Reclus and his editors and translators. There is indeed no proper place for themselves within any possible world as what they are. For the radical anarchist, only a few possible fates are possible. The best case scenario, for themselves and everyone else around them is for them to be so entirely ignored that their words fall unread and unheard. Alternatively, they act in ways contrary to what they view as an unjust system, and are punished for their crimes against people and property. The third option is the most tragic, their crimes are overlooked by those in authority who themselves wish to overturn the existing system of law and order, and when a new, revolutionary, one is erected, such people are the first to end up dead or in a gulag because they are no longer worthwhile and convenient to the totalitarian systems they have helped to set up. There is no way that the utopian schemes this author wishes for, or any other radical of his ilk, can be brought into reality without immense coercive power on the part of a state that will look very negatively on any attempt for people to be anarchical against it. Most unrealistic of all is probably the twaddle that the author engages in when talking to the peasant classes, because every totalitarian regime that ever sought to redistribute land was most interested in stealing the land of the independent farmers or kulaks that the author calls his brethren, in favor of massive and inefficient collective farms that are easy to control, unlike the behavior of regressive and independent-minded freeholding peasants. This book is full of the total unawareness of the tyranny that the author's anarchy wishes to bring into practice combined with the sort of self-righteous hypocrisy that would be popular among the contemporary left.
There is a fundamental structural problem with this book. It contains 230 pages or so of material, but the first 100 pages of the book consist of commentary from the editors and translators of the work, John Clark and Camille Martin, who seek to frame Reclus as being some sort of proto-feminist and proto-eco-anarchist in their own mold. Admittedly, for the purposes of their behavior Reclus is pretty convenient, in being obscure enough that he is neglected in mainstream political literature that seeks to deal with those who are left-of-center, so that someone can make space for themselves in contemporary academia by seeking to bring this hitherto unrecognized philosopher into greater attention as a forerunner of some of society's less benign intellectual trends. Similarly, he is not so advanced that the editors of this work cannot feel that sense of undeserved chronological snobbery about the language used by the French geographer and anarchist who they are translating and bringing before the attention of the world. He thus suits their purposes admirably in both respects as a forerunner but not someone who ran so far ahead of his time that he might embarrass the editors about their own provincial and regressive notions about philosophy and politics.
This book is some 235 pages or so of material, divided into two parts. Before both parts there are prefaces to the PM Press edition and to the first edition of the work. After that the first part of the book consists of an introduction to Reclus' social thought from the translators and editors of his work (I). This introduction consists of seven smaller chapters that take up a bit more than 100 pages, namely the story of the earth and humanity (1), Reclus' place as an anarchist geographer (2), his dialectic between nature and culture (3), his philosophy of progress (4), his views on social transformation (5), his critique of domination (6), and his legacy (7). The second part of the book then consists of selected writings from Reclus (II), namely, such works, largely in excerpted form, like "The Feeling For Nature In Modern Society (1866) (8), "To My Brother The Peasant (1893) (9), "Anarchy" (1894) (10), "The Extended Family" (1896), (11), "Evolution, Revolution, And The Anarchist Ideal" (1898) (12), "On Vegetarianism" (1901) (13), "The History Of Cities" (1905) (14), "The Modern State" (1905) (15), "Culture And Property" (1905) (16), "Progress" (1905) (17), and "Advice To My Anarchist Comrades" (1901) (18). After this the book concludes with notes, a bibliography, index, and information about the contributors.
Even when taking into account the structural problems of this work, there is a fundamental problem with the political worldview of an eco-anarchist of the stripe of Reclus and his editors and translators. There is indeed no proper place for themselves within any possible world as what they are. For the radical anarchist, only a few possible fates are possible. The best case scenario, for themselves and everyone else around them is for them to be so entirely ignored that their words fall unread and unheard. Alternatively, they act in ways contrary to what they view as an unjust system, and are punished for their crimes against people and property. The third option is the most tragic, their crimes are overlooked by those in authority who themselves wish to overturn the existing system of law and order, and when a new, revolutionary, one is erected, such people are the first to end up dead or in a gulag because they are no longer worthwhile and convenient to the totalitarian systems they have helped to set up. There is no way that the utopian schemes this author wishes for, or any other radical of his ilk, can be brought into reality without immense coercive power on the part of a state that will look very negatively on any attempt for people to be anarchical against it. Most unrealistic of all is probably the twaddle that the author engages in when talking to the peasant classes, because every totalitarian regime that ever sought to redistribute land was most interested in stealing the land of the independent farmers or kulaks that the author calls his brethren, in favor of massive and inefficient collective farms that are easy to control, unlike the behavior of regressive and independent-minded freeholding peasants. This book is full of the total unawareness of the tyranny that the author's anarchy wishes to bring into practice combined with the sort of self-righteous hypocrisy that would be popular among the contemporary left.
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April 21, 2021argümanları çarpıcı olmasa dahi bakış açısı sunuyor. çoğunlukla elisee reclus’nün yazılarına yer verilmiş fakat bu yazılarda başta kropotkin olmak üzere anarşist görüşe sahip pek çok yazarla ilgili fikir sahibi olabilirsiniz. genel perspektif sunması açısından güzel ve üzerine düşünülebilir yazıları sunması açısından hoş bir derleme.
May 1, 2020
This book gives a good summary of Reclus' life and thoughts. Reclus covered a broad range of topics, and his contributions to Anarchism should not be overlooked.
December 11, 2025
3.5 some of his essays were very cool and interesting and some were very meh
March 30, 2016
The title might lead one to think there's a three-part and equal division of attention to the politics of anarchy, the social science of geography and discussions of modernity. But there's less than a one-third share in it about geography--though certainly some, along with attention to ethnography, biology and divers other subjects.
M. Reclus deserves attention for his forward-thinking and the breadth of his interests; he places admirably in history (if one excuses his apologies for some of his comrades). But his thoughts are early contributions to trends in progress, and not as ground-breaking as his translator-admirers would have it.
The 98 page introduction by the pair that translated the book is the book's weakest point. They point out those aspects of M. Reclus's writings that stand out from the commoner currents of his time, but they do not indicate the degree to which the anarchist's expressions conform to those of his European contemporaries and their joint predecessors.
M. Reclus deserves attention for his forward-thinking and the breadth of his interests; he places admirably in history (if one excuses his apologies for some of his comrades). But his thoughts are early contributions to trends in progress, and not as ground-breaking as his translator-admirers would have it.
The 98 page introduction by the pair that translated the book is the book's weakest point. They point out those aspects of M. Reclus's writings that stand out from the commoner currents of his time, but they do not indicate the degree to which the anarchist's expressions conform to those of his European contemporaries and their joint predecessors.
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June 27, 2014335.8 R299 2013
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews