African Anarchism covers a wide range of topics, including anarchistic elements in traditional African socieites, African communalism, Africa's economic and political development, the lintering social, political, and economic effects of colonialism, the development of "African socialism, the failure of "African socialism, and a possible means of resolving Africa's ongoing crises.
This inspiring history of the Cuban anarchist movement is also a history of the Cuban labor movement. It covers both from their origins in the mid-19th century to the present, and ends with an enlightening analysis of the failure of the Castro dictatorship.
Before communism, anarchism and syndicalism were central to labour and the Left in the colonial and postcolonial world.Using studies from Africa,Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, this groundbreaking volume examines the revolutionary libertarian Left's class politics and anti-colonialism in the first globalization and imperialism(1870/1930).
Part one of a two-part history of the non-Marxist, libertarian form of socialism, aka anarchism. From its origins in the 18th century and the conflicts with Marx in the First International to insurrections, trade unions and specific anarchist organisations, the hidden history of an alternative tradition is revealed. The ideas about socialism so prevalent today, that it equates with state ownership, that is the perogative of the Party, that it has somehow failed, are all dismantled in this scholarly engagement with a complex ideology.
Black Anarchism and the Black Radical Tradition deals with three distinct radical orientations: the anarchist movement in Europe and the United States, the Black Radical Tradition, and Black anarchism. Importantly, Black anarchism owes more to the Black Radical Tradition than the European anarchist movement. Often, Black anarchists are not acknowledged within the Black Radical Tradition for their contributions to revolutionary theory as well as struggle. We seek to change that by discussing Black anarchist theorists and to shed light on the resonances and differences among them. We are in the midst of the largest Black uprising since the 1960s. Increasingly, the resonances between anarchist struggle and Black rebellion (with a common enemy in the capitalist state) are becoming clear. Over the past ten years, within radical networks and academic milieus, there has been renewed interest in clarifying these resonances. The Black Radical Tradition, as coined by the late great Black scholar Cedric Robinson, and its interactions with U.S. anarchism are what this project is attempting to map and explain. Our book engages with two waves of Black anarchists, including Kuwasi Balagoon, Lorenzo Kom''boa Ervin, and Ashanti Alston in the first wave, and Zoe Samudzi, William C. Anderson, and the Anarkatas in the second wave. We investigate why there has been dissonance between anarchists and Black radicals, partly by engaging relevant work and thought of anarchists such as Emma Goldman and David Graeber. The book makes the argument that anarchist theory can be "stretched'' to Black people in the United States and other countries, in the way that Frantz Fanon stretched Marxism to the Global South. Black anarchism is not simply anarchism being practiced by people who are Black, but rather a tradition of autonomy, mutual aid, and militant resistance that emerges out of Black historical struggle. It is clear there are resonances between Black radicalism and anarchism, especially in the wake of the great uprising of 2020. In this project, we seek to clarify those resonances. Black anarchism needs to be written and understood partly as a theoretical project and partly as a project of radical political action. There has been a renewed interest in Black anarchism. Books such as As Black As Resistance or Anarcho-Blackness published in the past couple of years show that interest. However, our book differs in several ways. Importantly, we seek to engage more directly and to critique texts within the anarchist canon as well as engaging with scholars such as Fanon and Robinson, who are both located in anti-colonial movements of the 1960s. By using Fanon and Robinson to engage with the European anarchist canon, we hope to explain the resonances between long standing Black radicals and anarchism. In addition, by engaging fully with leading writers in the two waves of Black anarchism, we hope to bring more clarity to the project that is Black anarchism. This work Is an important achievement in clarifying the history and current importance of Black anarchism. The information that the book presents will be new to many readers. For instance, one important component involves the explanations of how hierarchical principles within the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army helped generate the emergence of Black anarchism among key party members who later developed their ideas and strategies while in prison. Likewise, the book breaks new ground in demonstrating that Black anarchism has emerged not from the European/ North American anarchist traditions but rather from roots in Pan-Africanism, the Black radical tradition focusing on racial capitalism and the work of Cedric Robinson, and grassroots struggles partly in the U.S. South. An in-depth analysis of the somewhat different but complementary focuses within the two generations of Black anarchism also is very helpful. Finally, the book highlights concrete, contemporary implications for revolutionary strategy, including a perceptive analysis of the compatibilities between socialist and Black anarchist approaches to current transformative struggles. This publication will become widely known and used, because it brings enlightening new ways to understand and to act on the intertwined structures of racial capitalism and the capitalist state.
In this groundbreaking book, Ilham Khuri-Makdisi establishes the existence of a special radical trajectory spanning four continents and linking Beirut, Cairo, and Alexandria between 1860 and 1914. She shows that socialist and anarchist ideas were regularly discussed, disseminated, and reworked among intellectuals, workers, dramatists, Egyptians, Ottoman Syrians, ethnic Italians, Greeks, and many others in these cities. In situating the Middle East within the context of world history, Khuri-Makdisi challenges nationalist and elite narratives of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern history as well as Eurocentric ideas about global radical movements. The book demonstrates that these radical trajectories played a fundamental role in shaping societies throughout the world and offers a powerful rethinking of Ottoman intellectual and social history.
