To what degree can anarchism be an effective organized movement? Is it realistic to think of anarchist ideas ever forming the basis for social life itself? These questions are widely being asked again today in response to the forces of economic globalization. The framework for such discussions was perhaps given its most memorable shape, however, in George Woodcock's classic study of anarchism now widely recognized as the most significant twentieth-century overview of the subject.
Woodcock surveys all of the major figures that shaped anarchist thought, from Godwin and Proudhon to Bakunin, Goldman, and Kropotkin, and looks as well at the long-term prospects for anarchism and anarchist thought. In Woodcock's view "pure" anarchism characterized by "the loose and flexible affinity group which needs no formal organization" was incompatible with mass movements that require stable organizations, that are forced to make compromises in the face of changing circumstances, and that need to maintain the allegiance of a wide range of supporters. Yet Woodcock continued to cherish anarchist ideals; as he said in a 1990 interview, "I think anarchism and its teachings of decentralization, of the coordination of rural and industrial societies, and of mutual aid as the foundation of any viable society, have lessons that in the present are especially applicable to industrial societies."
This classic work of intellectual history and political theory (first published in the 1960s, revised in 1986) is now available exclusively from UTP Higher Education.
Woodcock was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, but moved with his parents to England at an early age, attending Sir William Borlase's Grammar School in Marlow and Morley College. Though his family was quite poor, Woodcock had the opportunity to go to Oxford University on a partial scholarship; however, he turned down the chance because he would have had to become a member of the clergy.Instead, he took a job as a clerk at the Great Western Railway and it was there that he first became interested in anarchism (specifically libertarian socialism). He was to remain an anarchist for the rest of his life, writing several books on the subject.
It was during these years that he met several prominent literary figures, including T. S. Eliot and Aldous Huxley and became good friends with George Orwell despite ideological disagreements. Woodcock later wrote The Crystal Spirit (1966), a critical study of Orwell and his work which won a Governor General's Award.
Woodcock spent World War II working on a farm, as a conscientious objector. At Camp Angel in Oregon, a camp for conscientious objectors, he was a founder of the Untide Press, which sought to bring poetry to the public in an inexpensive but attractive format. Following the war, he returned to Canada, eventually settling in Vancouver, British Columbia. In 1955, he took a post in the English department of the University of British Columbia, where he stayed until the 1970s. Around this time he started to write more prolifically, producing several travel books and collections of poetry, as well as the works on anarchism for which he is best known.
Towards the end of his life, Woodcock became increasingly interested in what he saw as the plight of Tibetans. He travelled to India, studied Buddhism, became friends with the Dalai Lama and established the Tibetan Refugee Aid Society. He and his wife Inge also established Canada India Village Aid, which sponsors self-help projects in rural India. Both organizations exemplify Woodcock's ideal of voluntary cooperation between peoples across national boundaries.
George and Inge also established a program to support professional Canadian writers. The Woodcock Fund, which began in 1989, provides financial assistance to writers in mid-book-project who face an unforeseen financial need that threatens the completion of their book. The Fund is available to writers of fiction, creative non-fiction, plays, and poetry. The Woodcocks helped create an endowment for the program in excess of two million dollars. The Woodcock Fund program is administered by the Writers’ Trust of Canada and has distributed $887,273 to 180 Canadian writers, as of March 2012.
Woodcock defines the subject of this work along the following lines: ". . .a system of social thought, aiming at fundamental changes in the structure of society and particularly. . .at the replacement of the authoritarian state by some sort of nongovernmental co-operation between free individuals." Once thus stated, of course, many readers would instantly dismiss the project described. However, this is a very nice overview of libertarian/anarchist thinkers and, as such, serves a useful purpose.
The organizational structure is pretty clean. His prologue outlines Woodcock's view of the subject matter. Then, Part I, "The Idea." Here, the author examines the political thought of a number of key thinkers in this strand of political thought. He begins with the deeper historical predecessors, including the "Diggers" in English history, Thomas Paine, and Jacques Roux, inter alia. Among those whose work he summarizes and assesses in more detail: William Godwin, the man of reason; Max Stirner, the egoist; Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the intellectual father of syndicalism; Mikhail Bakunin, the Russian nobleman who became an anarchist; Peter Kropotkin, a prince in Russia, who used evolutionary theory to justify his anarchist perspective; Leo Tolstoy (yet another Russian) and his Christian anarchism.
After perusing individual thinkers, Woodcock then examines anarchism/libertarianism across a variety of societies--from France to Italy to Spain to Russia, and elsewhere (including the United States). For each venue, he notes the development of the theory in historical terms and leading figures in the movement.
Finally, his epilogue. He reflects upon the meaning of the work of individuals and the movements across different societies.
For a solid introduction to the subject, this serves well up to the time of its publication. For those interested in a general overview of the subject, this serves well.
Bu kitap bazen kavramların anlamlandırılmasında yaptığım ciddi hataları bana bi daha gösterdi. Neredeyse tamamen farklı anladığım anarşi ve anarşizm kavramını daha net görebilmemi , kavrayabilmemi sağladı. Kesinlikle okunmasını tavsiye ettiğim bir kitaptır. Politik ya da apolitik olun farketmez.Kavramlara anlam kazandırmadakı hatalarınızı belki görebilirsiniz benim gibi..
Truth be told, I didn't actually enjoy many parts of this book. It is the type of book that is so broad in scope that there will certainly be something for everyone to dislike.
But it is very comprehensive and a great start to learning about classical anarchism. The first half devotes a chapter to an important anarchist theorist. Represented are: Godwin, Stirner, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Tolstoy. The Stirner chapter - only 10 pages - is easily the worst part of the book. More than half of the pages are dedicated to a frankly insulting biographical sketch, leaving very little space to explain Stirner's ideas. The Stirner chapter aside, I came out of this part of the book with a reasonably expanded appreciation for the thinkers and their theoretical output. This is not a philosophy book, though - much of the information is biographical and historical in nature.
The historical voice comes to dominate the second part of the book, where the author discusses the history of anarchism in various countries. Being much more of a philosopher than a historian, many parts were tedious. Organizations come and go, individual set up newspapers that are quashed within a year... it goes on and on. But as little as I enjoyed it, I have a much better appreciation for the events of the major historical events with which anarchism was associated. If I were to do additional work on, say, the Paris Commune, I would go back to this book to get a quick refresher on the topic.
So be aware of what you're getting if you pick this up. And be aware that you will get very scant treatment of the movements of the 1960s, almost nothing on Emma Goldman, and, bizarrely, no references, footnotes, or a bibliography (!).
AN EXCELLENT AND COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF ANARCHISM (UNTIL 1962)
Author George Woodcock wrote in the Preface to this 1962 book, “simplicity is the first thing to guard against in writing a history or anarchism. Few doctrines or movements have been so confusedly understood in the public mind, and few have presented in their own variety of approach and action so much excuse for confusion. That is why, before beginning to trace the actual historical course of anarchism, as a theory and a movement, I start with a chapter of definition. What I anarchism? And what is it not?... All anarchists deny authority; many of them fight against it. But by no means all who deny authority and fight against it can reasonably be called anarchist. Historically, anarchism is a doctrine which poses a criticism of existing society; a view of a desirable future society; and a means of passing from one to the other. Mere unthinking revolt does not make an anarchist, nor does a philosophical or religious rejection of earthly power… Anarchism, historically speaking, is concerned mainly with man in his relation to society. Its ultimate aim is always social change; its present attitude is always one of social condemnation, even though it may proceed from an individualist view of man’s nature; its method is always that of social rebellion, violent of otherwise.” (Pg. 9)
He continues, “It is through the wrecks of empires and faiths that the anarchists have always seen the glittering towers of the free world rising. That vision may be naïve… but it is clearly not a vision of destruction unmitigated. Certainly no man capable of such a vision can be dismissed as a nihilist. The nihilist… believes in nor moral principle and no natural law; the anarchist believes in a moral urge powerful enough to survive the destruction of authority and still to hold society together in the free and natural bonds of fraternity.” (Pg. 14-15)
He goes on, “Here we reach another important difference between anarchists and Marxists. The Marxist rejects the primitive as representing a stage in social evolution already past… Communist Realpolitik may at times demand a rapprochment with the peasants… but the end of such a policy is always to turn the peasants into proletarians of the land. The anarchists, on the other hand, have placed great hopes in the peasant… The anarchist’s cult of the natural, the spontaneous, the individual, sets him against the whole highly organized structure of modern industrial and statist society, which the Marxist sees as the prelude to his own Utopia.” (Pg. 26)
He explains, “William Godwin is one of the great libertarian thinkers who stand outside the historical anarchist movement of the nineteenth century, yet by their very isolation from it, demonstrate the extent to which it sprang from the spirit of the age. He had little direct influence on that movement, and many of its leaders, whose theories so closely resembled his own, were unaware of the extent to which he had anticipated them… After [Peter] Kropotkin, Godwin became recognized by the more intellectual anarchist as one of their predecessors, but his influence, which was potent, has lain mostly elsewhere. Godwin never called himself an anarchist; for him, ‘anarchy’ retained the negative meaning given to it by the polemicists of the French Revolutionary period. It meant, whenever he referred to it, the disorder that results from the breakdown of government without the general acceptance of a ‘consistent and digested view of political justice.’” (Pg. 60)
He asks, “How… if government is inevitable---as all things that exist must be to a compete Necessitarian---can we condemn it realistically? Finally, how can personal freedom and responsible choice, for which all the anarchists, Godwin included, have struggled, have any meaning in a Necessitariain world? Can one in fact be a political libertarian and a philosophic Necessitarian at the same time?” (Pg. 70-71)
He outlines Godwin’s thought: “He begins with four basic propositions. First, he claims that ‘the moral characters of men are the result of their perceptions,’ and that neither good nor bad is born into us… his second basic proposition … he believes that, left to itself, the human mind will naturally tend to detect error and to approach steadily nearer to truth… Godwin’s third proposition [is that]… government is as bad in practice as it is in principle… Godwin was one of the first to describe clearly the intimate link between property and power which has made the anarchists enemies of capitalism as well as of the state. The fourth basic proposition is the celebrated statement on the perfectibility of man… It is on Justice that Godwin lays the stress as he begins to develop from his four basic statements a discussion of the principles of society.” (Pg. 75-76)
He reports, “The fascination that [Sergei] Nechayev wielded over [Michael] Bakunin reminds one of other disastrous relationships between men of widely differing ages… Bakunin and Nechayev went into partnership in the preparation of literature for distribution in Russia. Nechayev was probably the more active of the two, but at least one of the seven pamphlets printed bore Bakunin’s signature… The more sensational pamphlets … were not signed at all; both extolled indiscriminate destruction in the name of the revolution and preached the sanctification of the means by the end. ‘We recognize no other activity but the work of extermination,’ says ‘Principles of Revolution,’ ‘but we admit that the forms in which this activity will show itself will be extremely varied---poison, the knife, the rope, etc.” (Pg. 172-173)
He recounts, “The variety of attitudes that characterized anarchism in the later nineteenth century was already evident at the London Congress. Some thought in terms of conspiratorial activity; others, like Kropotkin, held that a revolutionary movement must always spring from a broad upsurge among the people…There seems to have been agreement on the inevitability of violence (for the pacifist current had not het entered the anarchist movement), but its more extreme forms aroused considerable argument. The terrorist phase of anarchism had not yet begun… Kropotkin sought to bring a more realistic tone to the assembly… the 1881 Congress opened a period… when anarchists in general turned away from the idea of large working-class movements toward that of secret groups of direct actionists.” (Pg. 258-259) But he admits, “These rather pitiful efforts are the only specifically anarchist international congresses I have been able to trace from 1881 to the end of the nineteenth century. Their meagerness is at least in part due to the fact that between 1889 and 1896 there was a persistent effort on the part of the anarchists to infiltrate the congresses of the Second International, which the social democrats were then in the process of establishing.” (Pg. 261)
He records, “the terrorism of the 1890’s had been prepared by a decade in which French anarchists had talked much of violence without showing an great inclination to turn their talk into action… it is not easy to decide why in 1892 a number of young men should appear at the same time, resolved to act violently and willing to sacrifice themselves for they conceived to be justice… these assassins belonged to no order and worked within no disciplined group. They acted on their own initiative… Many of their fellow anarchists applauded them, even raised them to the status of martyrs, but for the most part declined to imitate them. And in this reluctance they were right from the anarchist point of view, since killing is the supreme form of power… Nevertheless, their shadows walk darkly beside any historian of anarchism; he cannot dismiss them as intruders on the road.” (Pg. 307)
He observes, “All anarchism has, of course, a moral-religious element which distinguishes it from ordinary political movements, but this element is far more strongly developed in Spain than elsewhere.” (Pg. 382) Later, he adds, “Even if one takes into account the special circumstances of the country and the times, the collectivization of Spanish factories and farms under anarchist inspiration remains a practical experiment on a large scale that cannot be ignored in a final assessment of the anarchist claims to have discovered a way to live in free and peaceful community.” (Pg. 398) However, he also notes, “English anarchism has never been anything else than a chorus of voices crying in the wilderness, though some of the voices have been remarkable.” (Pg. 439)
He concludes, “The very presence of such a concept of pure liberty can help us to judge our condition and see our aims; it can help us … in the urgent task of mere survival, of living out the critical decades ahead until the movement of world centralization loses its impetus like all historical movements, and the moral forces that depend on individual choice and judgment can reassert themselves in the midst of its corruption. The anarchist ideal may best fulfill this purpose, as its first exponents would have agreed, by the impact of its truths on receptive minds rather than by the re-creation of obsolete forms of organization or by the imitation of insurrectional methods that failed even in the past… In this insistence that freedom and moral self-realization are interdependent, and one cannot live without the other, lies the ultimate lesson of true anarchism.” (Pg. 475-476)
This book will be of great interest to anyone seeking a history of the Anarchist movement.
3ème livre, et certainement pas le dernier, que je lis au sujet de l’anarchisme, l’ouvrage de George Wood était justement cité comme l’une des références retraçant l’histoire de l’anarchisme par Colin Ward dans Anarchism : A very short Introduction.
Georges Woodcock (1912-1995), était un anarchiste canadien, auteur de nombreux ouvrages sur le sujet. Ce dernier fut publié en 1962, réédité en 1986 puis cette dernière édition en 2019. On peut dire que la réédition témoigne de la qualité de l’ouvrage qui reste pertinent encore de nos jours. Le fait est que l’auteur retrace l’histoire du mouvement en 2 parties, voir 3 si l’on compte l’épilogue. La 1ère partie est de type biographique, elle se penche sur les grandes figures. Ainsi, il est fait mention de proto-anarchistes tel que Spartacus, puis ceux qui ont jeté les bases du mouvement pour créer le mouvement ex-nihilo, on peut citer bien sur le Père de l’anarchisme Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Enfin les sympathisants ou ayant des opinions assimilables, tel que Henri Thoreau. La 2ème partie est pourrait-on dire géographique, présentant l’histoire du mouvement dans les pays d’intérêts. Il parcourt l’histoire du mouvement en France, en Italie, en Russie, en Espagne, en Angleterre, aux prises avec les différentes forces en présence (partis politiques, syndicats, intellectuels, révolutionnaires…).
Très bien écrit, dense, bien documenté, comportant de nombreuses références bibliographiques, Georges Woodcock a fait un véritable travail de recherche dont l’épilogue constitue une analyse finale majestueuse, sur les succès et échecs de l’anarchisme. S’il n’y avait qu’un seul chapitre à lire, je ne saurais que conseiller l’épilogue. Pour résumer, selon l’auteur le mouvement a souffert de plusieurs faiblesses qui ont fait que contrairement au communisme, l’anarchisme ne s’est implanté durablement dans aucun pays.
La première faiblesse est endogène, puisque l’anarchisme rejette l’idée de coercition due à une centralisation forte, or c’est justement la centralisation qui permet de mieux coordonner le mouvement et de palier la faiblesse numérique. Ensuite, bien que le mouvement comptait dans ses rangs des gens éduqués tel que Bakounine ou Kropotkine qui faisaient partie de la noblesse, voir des intellectuels tel que le géographe Elysée Reclus ou l’écrivain Léon Tolstoï, l’anarchisme n’a pas réussi à séduire les intellectuels, la plupart des anarchistes étaient des gens sans éducation, qui souvent vivaient dans la misère et se révoltaient contre leur condition sociale. Enfin, à la propagande par le verbe et par l’écrit, s’ajoutait la fameuse propagande par le fait, l’action directe, les assassinats d’hommes politiques, de dirigeants. De nombreuses personnes ne souhaitaient pas être associées à des meurtres, ce qui est compréhensible. De plus, il y avait une certaine naïveté dans leurs attentats. Ils croyaient qu’en coupant la tête de l’état, le système s’effondrerait sous son propre poids ou que la révolution spontanée allait surgir. Sans proposer de réelle alternative structurée, sans réussir à gagner le cœur des personnes étrangères à leur causes, le mouvement pouvait difficilement obtenir l’aval du peuple, qu’ils sont censés libérer.
Toutefois, l’anarchisme compte de nombreuses idées progressistes qu’aujourd’hui l’on prend pour acquis. La sécularisation des nations à travers la séparation de l’église et de l’état, le droit de vote pour tous sans distinction de sexe ou de revenu, la liberté d’expression, l’égalité totale par l’abolition des classes. Malheureusement l’anarchisme est un mouvement que les gens de connaissent que par de vagues clichés sans substance, qui est passé dans le langage commun comme synonyme de chaos. Nombreuses seraient les personnes surprises d’apprendre qu’elles partagent plus de valeurs avec les anarchistes, qu’avec leurs gouvernements. Ni Dieu ni Maitre, signifie que désormais l’homme reprend son destin en mains pour ne dépendre de personne, qu’il est désormais libre.
A useful, enlightening account of the historical phenomenon of the Anarchist movement (in Europe). I am leaving this book with a better understanding of the family of ideas represented by the term, and with an overview of their historical instantiations. Because I'm an ideas girl, my favorite part was the overview of anarchist ideas and thinkers and I'm especially excited to dig into some of the real old shit like the English dudes Godwin and Winstanley.
Because a human being and not a divine entity wrote it, it was limited in scope to movements which have called themselves anarchist and which have fallen under specific qualifications taken from foundational thinkers. As I leave this book, I'm curious about the impure instantiations of the Anarchist idea, especially the newer ones (book written in 1962, stops @ 1939). I was disappointed by the overwhelming whiteness of the movement, and think that this is a result of scope and not reality. Was especially disappointed when he talked about America and didn't mention race at all; racial oppression is so central to our history that every movement must be judged in part by how it engaged with it.
Still, I'm glad to have read it and think it will continue to provide a useful backdrop as I expand my own knowledge of this imagined community I claim to be a part of.
Note this rating is based on the first half. My copy has a printing error and it's missing a big chunk of the second half.
The first half is an engaging history of the roots of anarchist ideas. It covers most of the major thinkers like Godwin, Proudhon, Bakunin, etc, and provides a good summary of their lives and ideas. The chapter on Stirner is a bit lacking. It's clear that Woodcock was not a fan, and he doesn't analyze his ideas much. Still, he acknowledges Stirner's influence on anarchist thought in a pretty accurate manner.
The second half deals with the history of anarchist movements around the world. When I flipped through this part, I found that several pages of my copy were just repeats of earlier pages (down to the page numbers). It was disappointing, because the first half was really solid. I'll be picking up a new copy in the near future to finish it.
Also, funny story about this book. Bernie Sanders was in my city when I first picked this up, and he ended up coming into the cafe I started reading this in. So I read the first chapter with Sanders sitting in the table next to me talking to his campaign manager.
So, yes, admittedly, it is a bit suspect to present the history of anarchism of all things as an intellectual handoff between individual geniusses. Although that bothered me less than the fact that Woodcock doesn't mention any women. But, with all that said: I haven't found a better introduction to the work and life of the great anarchist writers (in this case Godwin, Stirner, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Tolstoy as a desert). And I've looked. Woodcock is a biographer, and he is very good at tracing what exactly these guys went through to make them end up where they ended up. I object to this kind of history on principle, but this framework does do a very good job of showing the assortments of oddballs that have hitched their wagons to anarchism through time. If there's one thing I know about anarchism, it's that it attracts weirdos.
I skimmed through the second half, which tries to trace to anarchist movements of different countries but ends up in a hopeless muddle of people and associations and unions and strikes. I feel like zooming in on some of these periods might have been more enlightening to get a sense of what anarchism looked like in practice. Well, guess it's finally time to read Homage to Catalonia.
when I was 18 I got this book at an anarchist bookshop in Vancouver and took it backpacking through central America and it honestly changed my life more than any other collection of ideas. I left the book in a hostel to spread the knowledge and I've regretted it ever since, the paperback sells for 64$ on Amazon now wtf. I was studying international relations which is basically a career path in diplomatic service and I had to change my major after this; the state is always the problem.
Fantastic read though, you cannot be an adult and honestly say you've considered anarchism or understand libertarianism without reading theory and this is good, readable and coherent theory presented well. if you find the book get it for real.
Everyone has a half-baked opinion about anarchism. Few know its roots. This is as succinct an historical overview as you can get from a fine writer who worked for two decades helping put together "freedom" magazine in G. Britain, and then managed a whole second career as a revered Canadian poet. Read "Anarchism" then read Chomsky and others. You may actually understand why folks deride us. Or try Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" He was ostracized by the British left for writing an unvarnished first hand reportage about the Spanish Civil War and the dastardly deeds of the communists vis-a-vis the anarchists. "Honi soit qui mal y pense".
The book, written in the middle of the 20th century, necessarily limits its scope to anarchism before 1939. The author is a Canadian non-proponent of anarchism that writes exclusively about anarchist movements outside of Canada.
If you are at peace with this and the implicit limitations (namely, a critical but fair review of European anarchism up to the end of the Spanish civil war), this book is a great read. The author, irrespective of the topic, wields a generational talent for superb writing. I will be checking out his other books.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Pretty basic book to start off a journey on Anarchist Theory, very old white man from the 20th Century way of writing, but that’s exactly what he is so I guess it makes sense lmao. I liked it thought, very well explained all the different philosophies and different ideas on Anarchism. Also loved the dynamic and flexible point of view he has on the ideology. Completely agree :)
anarşist düşünce ve hareket üzerine yazılmış başarılı bir başvuru kitabı. her ne kadar kitabın ikinci yarısında harekete ayırdığı detaylar arasında kaybolsa da okuyucu, sonradan dönüp bakılabilecek bir bilgi bankası.
Anarşizm kavramı, fikir babaları (çünkü Emma Goldman dışında hiçbir kadından bahsetmemiş) ve anarşizm tarihi konusunda genel bir fikir edinilse de ya yazarın stili ya da çevirmenden kaynaklı sorunlar sebebiyle sanki yeraltı edebiyatına ait bir kitap okuyormuşsunuz gibi hissettiriyor.
El libro está compuesto de dos partes. Me he leído solo la primera para ser honesto, y es un poco teoría del anarquismo a través de autores y está muy bien escrito porque es fácil de entender, nada complicado.
۲۵/۹/۱۴۰۲ باید همون موقع که کتاب رو تموم کردم نظرم رو اینجا مینوشتم ولی متاسفانه فراموش کردم و الان هم در وضعیت جالبی نیستم، امیدوارم بعدا بتونم مختصری از یادداشتام از بخشهای مختلف کتاب رو اینجا بزارم.
فهرست
بخش اول ۱. مقدمه ۲. شجره نامه ۳ مرد خرد ۴. خود بنیاد ( خودگرا ) ۰۵ مرد معما ۶. شور ویرانگری ۷. انسان کاشف ۰۸ پیامبر
بخشدوم
تلاشهای بین المللی ۱۰. آنارشیسم در فرانسه ۱۱. آثار شیسم در ایتالیا ۱۲. آنارشیسم در اسپانیا ۱۳. آنارشیسم در روسیه ۱۴. سنتهای گوناگون ۰۱۵ پی نوشت سخن آخر
En nästan lite för bra introduktion till anarkismen.
Boken börjar med en ganska omständlig introduktion till anarkismen, en överblick av dessa många olika inriktingar med fokus på författarens egen syn på anarkismen. Denna introduktion följs sedan av ingående analyser av anarkismens portalfigurer och dess verk, som till exempel Thomas Paine, William Godwin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Michail Bakunin och Peter Kropotkin, med flera. Boken avslutas sedan med en historisk genomgång av anarkismen i framför allt Frankrike, Spanien och Ryssland.
Det blev omöjligt till slut att hänga med i alla olika varianter av anarkismen och vem som förespråkade vad och vilka grupper som var inspirerade av vem.
If you're at all interested in Anarchism, this is an essential read. It gives a good rundown on it's history and various streams of thought. It's a good jumping off point as well, naming off major thinkers and works to reference if you decide to delve deeper.