review

Review: Practical Anarchism: A Guide for Everyday Life

From Freedom News by Uri Gordon

OMG it’s an anarchist self-help book! No, not an ironic one for burnt-out activists. This is a guide to rethinking everyday life for readers with no priors. Each chapter in Practical Anarchism starts with a few bullet points (‘you aren’t your job’; ‘study can take place anywhere’; ‘rethink the arrangement of our lives’) and ends with FAQ (‘do I have to be polyamorous?’; ‘can I have my own toothbrush’?)

Eco-Utopia from Below

From New Politics By Daniel Fischer

At a time when much climate literature emphasizes inadequate “deals” with capitalism or catastrophe-prone nuclear and geoengineering technologies, it’s refreshing to read two uncompromising proposals for ecological revolution. Despite coming from different political traditions, anarchist and Marxist, they reach overlapping conclusions regarding the necessity to reject elites’ false solutions, reduce global production, support participatory planning, and establish healthier relations with nonhuman beings. With solutions at hand, and the dead-ends increasingly obvious, the ways forward appear to be getting clearer.

Unrest: An Intriguingly Minimalist Chronicle of 19th-Century Anarchy

It’s hard to think of a better title than the one writer-director Cyril Schäublin came up with for his second feature, which chronicles the political fervor swelling beneath the surface of a quiet, picturesque industrial town in late-19th century Switzerland.

Bibliophilia & Anarchism in Star Trek: Picard

beam me up Willy! I have spoken.

From The Institute for Anarchist Studies by María Angeles Castro & Javier Sethness Castro

Following up on our previous analysis of the political and philosophical affinities between Mikhail Bakunin and Richard Wagner, in which we discussed social ideologies such as feminism, sexism, anti-Semitism, and anarchist revolutionism in the epic opera The Ring (1874), we turn now to an examination of the first two seasons of Star Trek: Picard (2020/2022). We hope our artistic study of this television show might help to elucidate the anti-authoritarian themes present in its first and second seasons, as well as draw attention to the numerous literary allusions and extensive bibliophilia (‘book-love’) present in both. Our purpose here is to illuminate the anarchist values and revolutionary messages conveyed in the show through the presence of literature. Reader be forewarned: this text contains spoilers for both seasons.

Leaves of Glass

from anon

The Condensed and Cutting Clarity of the Campaign to Play for Keeps

Invisible Generation: Rants, Polemics and Critical Theory Against the Planetary Work Machine. Jason Rodgers. Autonomedia. 2021.

Art is only bearable bearing witness against itself, Jason quotes me as saying in this refulgent collection of 33 essays and 27 flyers, but then her project Campaign to Play for Keeps was one of the publishers of my essay Anarchist Adventures in Wordlessland which began, “Anarchism may be beautiful in practice, but in theory it doesn’t work. It certainly doesn’t work wonders.”

One can only wonder, then, at the delight delivered by this demonstration of wor(l)d play undermining wor(l)d processing. Invisible Generation is anarchism for thinkers, not just readers and writers.

An Anthology of Puerto Rican Anarchist Texts from the Start of the 20th Century

Cover imgage of: "Free Pages: A Brief Anthology of Anarchist Thought in Puerto Rico (1900-1919)"

From 80grados.net English translation by Anarchist News

[Free Pages: A Brief Anthology of Anarchist Thought in Puerto Rico (1900-1919)], edited by Dr. Jorell Meléndez Badillo and published by [Emergent Education Editions] in 2021, compiles a sample of texts from anticlerical and secular Puerto Rican anarchism from the first two decades of the 20th Century, one of the least studied periods of that century.

Review- ‘Makhno: Ukrainian Freedom Fighter’

Review- ‘Makhno: Ukrainian Freedom Fighter’

From Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement by Urcuchillay

Ukraine has become a focus of attention lately due to the war there. For many this will be a temporary and superficial interest, related to the duration of that conflict and media interest in it. Clashes between nation-states and their elites is a deeply saddening feature of today’s world. Such a war brings up the question whether some better alternative is available? There are contemporary alternatives, but its also possible to look at the past for inspiration. In the case of Ukraine, there is a set of interesting historical events that do provide bits and pieces that suggest another way of being.

Submedia Presents: The Anarchists

From Sub.Media

If you’ve spent any amount of time on the desolate lands known as the internet in 2022 this summer, you have probably heard of the recent HBO documentary series titled “The Anarchist”. This pathetic excuse for a docuseries follows the story of a wealthy Canadian white guy who started a conference in Mexico called “Anarchapulco,” in hopes of promoting anarcho capitalism. The series then follows an array of wealthy westerners who have decided that Mexico is the land of freedom that will save them from the stifling bureaucracies of modern life.

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