The Anarchist Handbook

by Michael Malice

Anarchism has been both a vision of a peaceful, cooperative society—and an ideology of revolutionary terror. Since the term itself—anarchism—is a negation, there is a great deal of disagreement on what the positive alternative would look like. The black flag comes in many colors.The Anarchist Handbook is an opportunity for all these many varied voices to speak for themselves, from across the decades. These were human beings who saw things differently from their fellow men. They fought and they loved. They lived and they died. They disagreed on much, but they all shared one vision: Freedom.

Genres: Politics, Philosophy, Nonfiction, History, Audiobook, Economics, Essays

14 pages, Audible Audio

Published December 16, 2021

About the author

Michael Malice is the author of The White Pill, The New Right, The Anarchist Handbook, and Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il.

Reviews

[Aaron · Rating 1 out of 5]

As an "Anarchist Handbook," this book is 1-star. As an "Anti-State Polemics,” this would be closer to a 4 star.

Right off the bat, if you are reading this for exploration towards Anarchist thought, I would consider reading any of these four other works, either in conjunction with this anthology or in place of it:
No Gods No Masters: An Anthology of Anarchism, The Routledge Handbook of Anarchy and Anarchist Thought, Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, Volume 1: From Anarchy to Anarchism, & Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism

As with any anthology, there are 2 aspects that need to be judged: the works selected (are they relevant, what was the reasoning for these at the exclusion of others, etc...) & any analyses or commentaries that are present in the book by the editor(s). I will begin with the 2nd criterion.

Malice begins with a short chapter (3 pages for my pdf version) in which he gives an explanation for what anarchy is, some of the objections, and how he personally came to it. In this chapter, you can begin to see the framework of this book and why it is troubling. Let me provide a few quotations and then provide a general problem with this book (italics are my own for emphasis):

1.) "Every nation is in an anarchist relationship with one another. If a Canadian
kills an American in Mexico, there is some agreed-upon mechanism to
adjudicate the situation without involving a higher authority—because there is
no higher authority to invoke."
2.) "At base level, all anarchism claims to do is to resolve one major problem in
interpersonal relationships: the forceful interjection of the state."
3.) "The original version of anarchism, in the left-wing European tradition, is opposed to
domination by one person over another and advocates for a society based on
mutual aid and complete equality. The more recent version, the right-capitalists,
define themselves by opposition to the state."

Upon viewing these quotes, we can see a general problem (which also has troubling consequences for his selection of works): Malice, who claims to allow both left and right anarchists to "speak for themselves," has already distorted the view of what anarchism is for an audience that may be new to the subject entirely. He ignores all aspects of authority that are imposed by other powers besides the state, which is a rather important blind spot, as it underpins the left-wing tradition.

The anthology has 21 entries, ranging from the communist tradition of Kropotkin to the capitalist formulations by Rothbrand. Also included are a host of thinkers that I was surprised to see (due to never having heard of) such as John Hasnas, Charles Robert Plunkett, and others. It is clear that Malice believes that anarchy is the opposition to government and state, instead of opposition to authority itself (as is the case in the "left-wing European tradition"), because he strips away most of the socialist aspects of the early radicals (and characterizes these thoughts as naive, in the case of Kropotkin).

All modern anarchists chosen in this book were of the right-wing variety. This gives the picture that left-wing anarchism is more or less a dead ideology, superseded by a capitalist-driven doctrine of anti-statism. This completely ignores those modern-day, left-wing anarchist movements such as The Zapatistas, Democratic Confederalism, (and to a lesser extent) the Occupy Movement. It also ignores the reasons for the disagreements between left & right anarchists, which is essential for understanding what anarchism is. As mentioned before, if you want a serious understanding of anarchism, skip this book, there are better histories and anthologies.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

On a few occasions I have said that Rothbard’s Anatomy of the State broke my brain, and Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Democracy: The God That Failed began to piece it back together. Though it serves a very different purpose than either, Michael Malice’s The Anarchist Handbook must deservedly enter the canon of such works. Unless one is particularly open-minded and committed to plumbing its 350-odd dense pages, it could not easily be recommended to the reader utterly unacquainted with its ideas. But for the potential-anarchist-in-bloom, or the newly redpilled normie, it’s certainly the most broad, comprehensive, and dare say definitive compendium on the subject available. It certainly would have saved me a bit of time.

For my full review:

https://midnightmouthful.substack.com...

[Meredith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thicker than expected, immensely satisfying.

[MR RH LEONARD · Rating 5 out of 5]

Are you an anarchist?

I had to read this book in order to gain the realization that I am an anarchist. I had the mistaken belief that insurrection was anarchy, but found the definition of anarchy in this book to resonate with my basic beliefs.
Read this book to see whether you are also an anarchist.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic collection of essays and writings. Voltairine shot to the top of my must read more list.

[Vini Vince · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of texts of various authors from Godwin to... Malice himself with a quick and sometime witty introduction for each of them.

We are nowhere near a work like Guérin's "No Gods No Masters: An Anthology of Anarchism" nor Robert Graham's "Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas" indeed but "left-wing" anarchists can learn a bit about "right wing" anarchists and vice versa. I expected and would have liked to read more from Malice but alas...

One would have liked to see more about other "type" of right-wing anarchists, especially the french ones who are quite different than their American counterparts.

Anyway I really enjoyed some of the texts, especially the one from the provoKing Proudhon.

[Jiří Karpják · Rating 5 out of 5]

The black flag truly comes in many colors

[Dave Burns · Rating 5 out of 5]

What's the fuss about?

Michael Malice gives us an opportunity to learn from people we disagree with. The assumption of this book is that you might not already know everything worth knowing. He has collected writing from a broad group of thinkers who have little in common but a willingness to question sacred cows. They probably don’t even agree on what anarchism means!

[Marcus Herrera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty good. Honestly don't know where to start with this one. Of one wants to learn about anarchy, this is THE book. Favorite essays were by David Friedman and Murray Rothbard.

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ethan Suplee tho ❤️❤️❤️

[Philemon Schott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nachdem ich mir in letzter Zeit viel sozialistische Texte gegönnt habe, war ich froh diese Anthologie des Anarchismus gefunden zu haben. Der Hg., der auch die Einleitungen zu den Texten verfasst hat, ist laut Wikipedia selbst Anarchist - also Ideal für eine Innenansicht, dachte ich mir erst. Leider war es dann aber so, dass er durch seine Auswahl sehr stark vorgegeben hat, was denn Anarchsimus sei und wie er sich entwickelt habe. Seine Anordnung, die, soweit ich das überblicke, chronologisch ist, wird in der Auswahl immer tendenziöser, je weiter man in die Gegenwart kommt. So kommt es, dass die letzten Texte fast ausschließlich anarcho-kapitalistischer Ausrichtung sind. Der krönende Abschluss ist dass ein Text von ihm selbst. Dadurch kriege ich als Einsteiger den starken Eindruck, dass das die einzige Form gegenwärtigen anarchistischen Denkens sein müsse. Ich denke aber nicht, dass das so ist. Ein weiterer Punkt ist die starke Einengung auf den US-amerikanischen Kontext.

Generell gefielen mir die Texte am Anfang am besten: v.a. Tolstoy, Bakunin, Goldmann, Kropotkin. Aber ich muss sagen, dass das Lesen eine Achterbahnfahrt war, wie ich sie bei bisher keiner Denkschule hatte. Starke Zustimmung und starke Ablehnung empfand ich je nach Thema - weniger nach gelungener oder misslungener Argumentation. Ich muss da auf jeden Fall noch mehr lesen.

[Wesley Warbington · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is not intended to have a cohesive structure other than individually presenting the ideas from the main anarchist figures in history up to present (this is not my critique, but just explaining the layout of the book). Most of the material was not very interesting and left me feeling that it’s intellectually boring and potentially unfair/dishonest/bad to talk about why something does not work without offering an alternative and how you are proposing something better. I read the Fabric of Reality (David Deutsch) at the same time and to take inspiration from that book… In science we should only value the best explanations and the best explanations could indeed have clear issues and problems. For example, general relativity is our current best explanation for the macro scale of the world, universe, galaxy, multiverse, etc… but it cannot explain the presence of “dark matter”. However, scientists are not standing on their present high horse saying Einstein was stupid, general relativity does not work and it should be discarded. No, we acknowledge there is a problem with the explanation (it is incomplete in an identified way) but it is still the best explanation to date. Therefore we do not discard it, but instead we use it as a baseline to discover a better explanation. Bringing this back to the Anarchist Handbook, there were multiple chapters where the anarchist philosopher presented many critiques and complained continually about the governance systems we have today without saying what they think is a better alternative (other than just the negation of what they dislike about current governance) or how a new alternative would be approached and implemented. You could argue that some peoples job is to identify the problems and the job of others to find solutions and implementations but I think if all your doing is trying to find problems, you don’t have the right framing to be identifying problems that have solutions or are even worth solving because you don’t care about the solution. To be fair to these anarchists, Michael Malice (author) compiled each persons texts/ideas into the book so maybe they are just incomplete. There were however four chapters and thinkers that did present solutions/alternatives that were thought provoking. My thoughts below are all over the place just hitting the points that I wrote down when reading and certainly do not present each of the anarchist’s full arguments.

**Chapter 8 - Lysander:**

One definition of anarchy is: No domination of one man over another. Anarchy has gripping arguments and can be convincing but I am not sure it’s good if everyone accepts it — in the same way it could be problematic if nobody believed in free will. One point emphasized in this chapter is that it is crazy that we are living by rules set by people in the 18th century. I often times come back to this thought but am unsure if I think that this is a good feature or could be improved on by iterating and updating on some of the outdated thoughts put forward in the constitution for example. Lysander takes this idea further saying that we are just born into a world where we accept these rules of law and consent is never actually given to a governing body. He dismisses the argument that voting can be used as a form of consent. ie if you vote, then you consented for the person you voted for to govern you. The argument here was that you are compelled to vote even you do not want to so as to select the lesser of two evils. He calls out that there is no accountability because the whole system is a closed ballot and no signature attached to a vote. This discussion is not about the validity of elections and the arguments would stand if there was a perfect system with zero fraud. The point is the elected can never know who their supporters are and thus have no accountability and you as the voter have no ability to impel the elected to act on behalf of what you think is right, because whose to say you are actually a supporter. He considers secret/closed ballots immoral and adds the thought that we have to sign for consent on the purchase of a 3 dollar coffee yet when it comes to electing the leaders and decision makers of the country, this is somehow not an important thing to do anymore.

**Chapter 18 - Linda and Morris Tannehill**

This was the first chapter I felt like there was an attempt to answer some of the obvious questions. An alternative to government policing could be: Everyone has rights to go after others. Insurance companies can exist as larger groups to account for situations where victim can receive compensation from the aggressor. My logical conclusion is: Would not these insurance companies devolve, evolve, turn into one large government force? Another point illuminated is that government punishment contributes to society as a whole but in many cases leaves the individual victim with no repayment for damages. More succinctly, it creates a disincentive for crime at the societal level. ie: there is probably less crime because of government policing, but if you are the unlucky to be affected by a crime then sucks for you. The proposed solution to this would be a third party defense service. The next logical conclusion again though is: Would not these third party defense services devolve, evolve, turn into one large government force?

What about those persons who have a lot of money and thus can compels other people and groups to do what they want to get what they want? The answer given here is social incentives.

As I was reading, I thought of an edge case that is unclear to me what the solution is: What if there was an asymmetry between the value the aggressor could gain from a crime VS what the payoff to the victim would be? i.e: After the aggressor payed back the value of the crime plus any secondary consequences (such as the victims time to find culprit and hire a 3rd party to investigate and do justice) the aggressor could then still make a profit, then he would be incentivized to do so. In other words, the value of a stolen good is greater in the hands of an aggressor rather than the victim. For example, if the aggressor had better/more/different connections or knowledge that would allow him to profit more than the victim with whatever the aggressor gained from the crime.

An interesting point from this chapter is that “injustice cannot be a deterrent to injustice.” The punishment should equal the crime. There should be a symmetry here and only what is a fair consequence to an action should be taken. But who decides what is fair? I believe the Tannehills would say a free market of third party organizations that would be like insurance companies and a defense service to collect what is owed.

You should desire to be a producer — it is morally right.

Many interesting points that deal with incentives and the Tannehills do a good job of steel manning the opposing argument.

**Chapter 19 - David Friedman**

Friedman has great ideas, leaning on game theory and incentives, with an overall interesting philosophy. He calls out the two main critiques of anarcho-capitalism and addresses them:

1. It’s inherently unstable and will resolve itself to a state anyway.
2. A society like this would be incapable of defending itself against an aggressive foreign government.

He discusses how strong social pressures and incentives actually are at controlling actions and behavior. He gives the example that we tip out of obligation and social pressure and there is no force compelling us to do so.

Friedman looks at a new form of governance from the perspective and where we are now and acknowledges that there is a difference between anarcho-capitalism working well in a vacuum and it working as it is transitioned to from the current state of a different form of governance. He says that all government functions are divided into two classes:

1. Those that we can do away with today
2. Those that we can do away with tomorrow. (Some forms of governance are necessary temporary evils or the best thing we have at the time).

**Chapter 21 - John Hasnas.**

An idea that really stood out to me and formulated in my own words is: “The stability of the rule law is not due to its underlying structure namely some set of universal deterministic axioms but instead it is due to the homogeneity of those interpreting past law and creating explanations backed up by precedent.” He really harps on the idea that “The rule of law is a myth and like all myths, it is designed to serve an emotive rather than cognitive function.” Furthering this idea he says: “The purpose of a myth is not to persuade one’s reason, but to enlist one’s emotions in support of an idea. And this is precisely the case for the myth of the rule of law. Its purpose is to enlist the emotions of the public in support of societies power structure.” The key here is to not give a single person or group as the ones who have decided the law but fool those into thinking there is this objective rule of law. “Once they believe that they are commanded by an impersonal law, rather than other human beings, they view their obedience to political authority as a public spirited acceptance of the requirements of social life rather than mere acquiescence to superior power.”

He uses an analogy of monosizia where he pushes back on the idea that, “It is not able to be done in practice so we shouldn’t try radical ideas” I am not sure where I fall on this. Thinking about governance be built as the initial thing opposed of having to go through a transition state to get there are two very different things. The majority of my thoughts lean towards doing things that can be done in practice but I do think you need some room for error here because all the great things done are not thought to be possible by most people until they were. So, this also should not be used as a silencing technique. However, you cannot keep using the phrase when it has continually failed with no mutations in the idea/explanation/implementation after failure.

One point that really made me stop and think is that we are conditioned to associate law and order as if they are axiomatic synonyms. He emphasizes that they are not.

One of the last points that is pretty much an unfalsifiable argument for lack of central government but still stood out to me was: “If human beings have the wisdom and knowledge generating capacity to be able to describe how a free market would work that would be the strongest possible argument for central planning. One advocates a free market not because of some moral imperative written across the heavens, but because it is impossible for human beings to amass the knowledge of local conditions and the predictive capacity necessary to effectively organize economic relationships among millions of individuals.”

Lastly, “The law is an amalgam of contradictory rules and counter rules expressed in inherently vague language that can yield a legitimate legal argument for any desired conclusion. For this reason, as long as the law remains a state monopoly, it will always reflect the political ideology of those invested with decision making power.”

### Michael Malice

“Many times a vote is a formality.”
”People will say with a straight face that having one choice for dear leader is tyranny, but having two is freedom. Is that second choice in the ballot really a qualitative difference?”
-----
**Listened to audiobook

[Tretiakov Alexander]

I liked Michael's other books, so I decided to give this one a shot.
I was trying to be open minded, but these essays didn't persuade me. If anything, they shed some light on the absurdity of some of the ideas. Most essays contradict each other, and there is no clear definition of what they are trying to achieve, other than -- wouldn't it be great if I did what I wanted all the time, without any downsides.
Some of the essays raise interesting points and are thought provoking, so it was not a waste of time.
A lot of it is just mental masturbation. Most find a small issue with a set up, and proceed to say that it'd be much better if the whole set up was torn down. It is not clear how one follows from the other. Most such experiments ended up creating set ups that were way worse than what they were trying to replace.
Michael keeps saying that he is an anarchist, but he lives in Brooklyn, which I find telling. Even within the U.S. there are places much more aligned with his ideas and yet he doesn't move there. I'm not even saying that he could move to some other places in the world that match way more what he professes to believe in. Watch what people do and not say.

[Derek Kreider · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the diversity of voices here. There are many with whom I'd strongly disagree, particularly in the area of violence, but the breadth of discussion is fantastic. It pairs well with Christian Anarrchism by Dr. Alexandre C, as that work provides a sampling of specifically Christian anarchists.

I think what's most fascinating is how many proposed solutions to the state exist, and how many glaring evils of the state are exposed here. We just blindly accept the state. Even if one doesn't become an anarchist, there's a lot here to chew on.

[John Belchamber · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came to this audiobook book to learn about ‘the what’ of Anarchy and dispel some of the myths I’ve lived with.

Most of the articles herein were very enlightening and thought provoking, although I confess to eventually skipping one after another hour of listening to the author repeat themselves and realising there was still an hour of them left…I’ll let you work out which one it was.

An amusing highlight was the beeping out of one part. Censorship in a book about anarchy?

I left feeling I’d scratched the surface of ‘the what’ and still no nothing of ‘the how.’ That said, I recommend this for anyone curious about the history and thinking behind anarchy.

[James Lang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this guide to anarcharist philosophy! Will be coming back to this in the future.

“If I need representation, I will hire the most qualified person to do so. Otherwise, I will smile and nod as my friends go to their places of worship, wishing them well while I simply pray to be left alone.”

[5H3MS]

Что-то поубавился пыл исследовать глубже анархизм)

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

My dad bought me this book. Not many people have a dad that buys books on Anarchism. So that’s cool. But, anyways. This is a collection of excerpts from a wide variety of anarchists. It includes dynamite throwers, pretty-much-commie-anarchists, free market anarcho-capitalists and everything in between. Compilations usually have some duds and this certainly did, but it also has some fine sections. (And if any of you are writers, the ideas in the article “The Market for Liberty” by Morris and Linda Tannehill if made into a novel would make a great dystopian book. Imagine your insurance company and Blackwater private security running the world.)

[Goatfoot Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative if you want to learn about historic/modern anarchism.

[Diogenes the Dog · Rating 5 out of 5]

Without endorsing all the diverse content of this book, it is something that has been absent for too long, an honest representation of left and right anarchism and every flavor in between, because, “the black flag flies in many colors.”

[Christian Orton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really brilliant compilation of essays. Especially Tolstoy and Stirner.

I'm not an anarchist and won't be an anarchist, I still think there needs to be some kind of central check on society, however it's foolish to believe we don't need to head in an anarchist direction for the good of our nation. The corruption is so deep and pervasive, the crop of politicians so narcissistic, that relying on democracy is like trying to put out a fire with gasoline (to quote the great David Bowie). They become masters at telling the public what they want to hear, creating and exacerbating problems so they can continue to have issues to run on, all the while robbing normal citizens and stripping them of their rights. The death of the middle class is likely and at this point could be unavoidable.

Many of our politicians belong in jail for war crimes and insider trading (whether or not it's technically illegal is moot when considering an adult's mature understanding of justice). They lie constantly, gaslighting every naive citizen who refuses to see the pattern (as I read yesterday that the president's administration is briefing TikTok creators on Ukraine/Russia; do you really think it's anything but propaganda?...and no, I'm not pro-Putin or the invasion, it's ok to have a nuanced perspective). At the very least, "progress" will begin by the public actually calling for justice and seeing these cretins actually behind bars.

Anyway.

Many of the points raised in these essays are actually things the founders, particularly Madison and Paine, highlighted quite frequently. Their character was off the charts and the comparison to modern day politicians is laughable. Like comparing da Vinci or Monet to a child's scribbling. And I'm not being playful or exaggerative.

The problem, as always, is the character and maturity of the population. We no longer produce genuinely virtuous leaders because we've evolved our society to a point where leisure and tolerance and good feelings is of highest value rather than wisdom, principles, character development and individual responsibility. So we've gotten a lot of "my truth" and anti science pseudo-religious gobbledegook rather than genuine justice, truth and selfless service. We've lost the reality that people in their nature are depraved and will often take every advantage they can. And we've adopted the foolishness that we are all blank slates shaped only by society.

So 1000% read this book. It's a collection of some brilliant snd principled thinkers. That's worthy enough. But I hope it also highlights for you as it did me how quickly things devolve into realities like we find ourselves in today (where corruption is rampant everywhere) because of our abdication of what really matters. By ignoring, suppressing and mocking the wisdom that's been apparent since the beginning of humanity and written about constantly over the centuries.

Also I highly recommend Michael's other books "Dear Reader" and "The New Right" as well as his podcast. But I'd start with his appearances on Rogan and Alex Fridman's podcasts to be introduced properly to his brilliance and unique personality.

[Jasmine Peart · Rating 1 out of 5]

An ideology perhaps for those in a privileged position who don’t need to think of the practicalities for the lower socio-economic bracket. A lot of the pieces are written in a time much before where we are now, with solutions that are no longer applicable. Violence is not the answer and never will be, rather a sign of lack of intelligence.
Book was poorly recorded and of such rubbish audio quality it hurt to listen to.

Tolstoy argues that no person should be able to have violence over another person, in regards to governmental and police violence. This should be a subject for peace, not a call for violence, as NO ONE should use violence. Anarchists seem to think if the State applies violence, then so should they. Two bad do not make an overall good - which they seem to miss in their works.

Small points I did like:
Privilege of being in power. Universities and scientific groups the most revolutionary ideas are crushed and you are encouraged to think like the masses.
Majority of the citizens are struggling to have their own land while those empower have a surplus of land.
Soldiers - Participation in crimes of government

[Erica · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was super insightful. I learned a lot. I read it as an audiobook, which had multiple narrators, some I recognized, some new, all enjoyable. Sort of reminded me something like the Federalist Papers in the way that it read. I’d recommend it to anyone, great for book clubs or student topical report, anyone wanting to understand the political philosophy, the function of government, key people and their ideas around the subject.

The Story
It covered a lot of ground between the historical context of situations and key persons advocating for an anarchical state. Very comprehensive and commentary by the author helped to ask questions that I was pondering over and tie thoughts together.

Topics/questions that were brought up and dissected in detail include:

-Social contract and the consent to be born
-The Spartans
-Wage earners, colonists
-Order and disorder
-The state
-What is the government as far as representation? The state? US? Nazi Germany?
-Is modern day immigration a form of colonialism not much different than colonists of the past?
-Defining code of morals in origin and the protection around such concepts
-Monopolies
-Labor, taxes, capital gains
-Rights and responsibility
-Scale of crime
-Punishment and revenge
-Justice
-Reparations
-Open source software

I thought the bit about the room, the house, and a bed, idle or laborers, was interesting.

The Writing
Most of the content was excerpts from previous writings from the source, sometimes followed by commentary, which I quite liked. It was mostly chronological and well-organized from that standpoint.

Overall, it answered a lot of questions and I felt it to be a very thorough, well-researched, and well presented read.

I will look forward to more from this author.

Blog post

[Gene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Any book that changes one's thinking about things is a very valuable book. This collection of anarchist writings from over the last few centuries re-ordered my thoughts about politics and the legal system in two important ways. First, Lysander Spooner's chapter helped me question the legitimacy of government rule over one who has not given his consent to that state. Who among us has signed the U.S. Constitution? What other contract is binding on one who has not agreed to it? It gives rise to the legitimacy of secession and the hope that one day voluntary associations can replace coercion.

The second chapter that transformed my thinking was the one by the Tannebaums regarding the purpose of the legal system and how it could be transformed to provide real retribution to victims of aggression rather than punishment or revenge on the criminal. This is a great idea that would free our prisons of those who have committed "victimless crimes." It would be much more humane and just. I hope the Libertarian Party will embrace this policy goal.

I benefited from reading the writings from anarchists on the left with whom I was not familiar. I was able to observe the legitimacy of some of their views and how they could remain communists while being true anarchists.

[Niklas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the picks for the essays I found unreadable. Others were gold.

The guidance by the book is a bit slim as to what it wants to achieve - does it want to cover the whole spectrum of anarchism (it doesn’t)? Does it want to give a glimpse into the thinking of some anarchism thinkers (it does, but then the picks seem arbitrary).

I did find value in reading in mostly by appreciating some authors whom I’ve never read before to read further: Bakunin, Spencer, Tolstoy, Rothbard, Tucker, Godwin, Hasnan. I appreciated Proudhon and Kropotkin and can see why people find them interesting - but not enough for me to see value in reading them further.

Other essays were either unreadable (Stirner, Most, Spooner, Plunkett, Lingg) or just didn’t seem profound enough to be counted as classics. Friedman has much better essays than the one picked, utterly lacking are B. Caplan and M. Huemer, probably the most profound contemporary ancaps.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this book was very interesting. I learned a lot about anarchism and anarchist ideology by reading the different essays. There were a few ones that I found rather disagreeable, but most of the essays present strong arguments. I thought the last essay by Malice was a weak finish for the collection, but as a whole, I enjoyed reading this. It was a challenge to get through, but I did it.

[Ben Klingman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great read! Really a perfect compilation of historical and consistent radical criticism of the state. I really enjoyed Ch 20, Anatomy of the State by Murray Rothbard, he has a very unique and critical perspective of the state that is not common. I read this along with the audiobook version consisting of 22 different personalities, some I knew and recognized, most I didn't. It was an excellent way to compile the perspectives and voices of the past as well as break up the book a little, really one of the better audio experiences! Ch 8 is another great chapter on the illegitimate nature of the state and the constitution, this book is just a brain exercise in critical thought and radical politics all pointing to the idea of genuine self governance, which I really enjoyed and appreciated since I didn't know majority of the authors.

[Nicholas Conrad · Rating 5 out of 5]

A survey of the evolution of anarchist thought through the rise of industrial states into the hegemony of western-style democracies (and perhaps beyond). The essays are arranged chronologically, but reviews that complain that the text does not culminate in an endorsement of their favorite flavor of anarchist philosophy have entirely missed the point, and should re-read the introduction. The purpose of the book is precisely to show that there isn't just one 'anarchy', but rather that "the black flag flies in many colors".

It was very interesting to hear in their own words from many different kinds of anarchists, often ones with whom I would deeply disagree, and yet from each of these different points on the ideological spectrum; the fallacy of the state is laid bare.

[G.S. Richter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brutally enlightening. At times, irrefutable. Also, a huge ray of hope. Anarchism gets a bad rap for its historical association with violence. Here, we have a collection of essays from across time and the anarchist philosophical spectrum that (mostly) denounce violence as a means to achieve anything: What a concept.

If you can read these essays by in particular Lysander Spooner, Voltairine de Cleyre, or Murray Rothbard without becoming anarchic in your heart . . . then you might not have one.

[Florian]

This was not as accessible as I thought. Especially the older essays. I quite enjoyed it overall but only skimmed some of the ancap chapters since I found it hard to accept the basic premises. Probably the most surprising to me was the second to last chapter by Hasnas about the State's monopoly on the law and how we all accept it.