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wezelvis's review
3.0
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.
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.
hrjs9223's review against another edition
Whilst it did inform me of a lit, the second half just became too tedious without having a pretty developed prior knowledge of 19/20th century european politics.
matthew4's review against another edition
4.0
Interesting and easy-to-read history of anarchist movements and thinkers, featuring many amusing anecdotes.
jeff_cochran's review against another edition
5.0
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.
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.