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nb_leftist's review
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.75
I think it’d be better w/o the rampant antisemitism, I think this is also more of a later read. It’s hard to understand w all the historical references and it’s not till the latter chapters where it starts to actually talk about anarchism directly. Very hard to understand if you aren’t experienced in reading through theory like this.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Antisemitism
dozydom's review
slow-paced
3.5
Interesting and informative mostly as a historical artifact of 19th century anarchism; bakunin's insight into communism and Marxism is more helpful than his extensive musings on the racial and national characteristics of Germans and Jews.
macho's review
4.0
This is so focused on nineteenth century European geopolitics, and especially the road to the unification of Germany, that I wouldn't have been able to get through this or understand what Bakunin was talking about if I didn't happen to have been reading a lot about both topics a lot over the past year. Bakunin's political philosophy (which is obviously what I was reading this for) is told a bit indirectly through that story: I was expecting it to be more in the forefront. He does critique Marx, and I quickly read Marx's reply to Bakunin in his "Conspectus" immediately afterward. It's hard for me to reconcile giving a good review to a book that occasionally exihibits base anti-Semitism, which it goes without saying is ugly and inexcusable.
cinaedussinister's review
3.0
Relatively vanilla conclusions for a Socialist Anarchist, and quite a rationalistic method, but definitely not the worst.
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