Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist is Alexander Berkman's account of his experience in prison in the U.S. from 1892 to 1906. First published in 1912 by Emma Goldman's Mother Earth press, it has become a classic in autobiographical literature.Alexander Berkman (November 21, 1870 - June 28, 1936) was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century, famous for both his political activism and his writing. Berkman was born in Vilna in the Russian Empire (present-day Vilnius, Lithuania) and emigrated to the United States in 1888. He lived in New York City, where he became involved in the anarchist movement. He was the one-time lover and lifelong friend of anarchist Emma Goldman. In 1892, undertaking an act of propaganda of the deed, Berkman made an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate businessman Henry Clay Frick, for which he served 14 years in prison. His experience in prison was the basis for his first book, Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist.
'Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist' is Alexander Berkman's autobiographical account of his 14-year imprisonment for an attempted assassination of an industrialist. As an anarchist activist, he hoped to awaken the oppressed American people's consciousness, but his political intent was misunderstood by fellow prisoners and society. Berkman's memoir reads like a diary, tracing his coming-of-age and loss of youthful idealism in prison. His self-imposed distance and moral high ground crumble as he recognizes the flawed humanity in himself and others, including his relationship with fellow anarchist Emma Goldman. The book also notably discusses homosexuality in prison, making it an important political text on the topic. This classic memoir is a must-read for anyone interested in anarchist literature, political violence, and prison reform.
Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist is Alexander Berkman's account of his experience in prison in Western Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, in Pittsburgh, from 1892 to 1906. First published in 1912 by Emma Goldman's Mother Earth press, it has become a classic in autobiographical literature. Story The book begins with the details of how Berkman came to be imprisoned: as an anarchist activist, he had attempted to assassinate wealthy industrialist Henry Clay Frick, manager of the Carnegie steel works in Pennsylvania. Frick had been responsible for crushing the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers during the Homestead Strike, in which nine union workers and seven guards were killed. However, although Berkman shot Frick two times -Berkman was subdued before the third shot- and stabbed him several times in the leg with a poisoned knife, Frick survived, and Berkman was sentenced to 22 years in prison. Berkman had hoped to awaken the consciousness of the oppressed American people-an attentat-but, as the book goes on to detail, America lacked the political culture to interpret his actions. Even fellow prisoners from the union he was defending failed to see his political intent. The bulk of the book is set during Berkman's years in prison. Written in first-person, present-tense English (a language that was new to Berkman), it reads like a diary, though it was in fact written after Berkman's release. It is a coming-of-age story that tracks Berkman's difficult loss of his youthful sentimental idealism as he struggles with the physical and psychological conditions of prison life, at times bringing him to the verge of suicide. As he gets to know the other prisoners, he has nothing but disdain and disgust for them as people, though he sees them as victims of an unjust system. "They are not of my world," he writes. "I would aid them," he says, being "duty bound to the victims of social injustice. But I cannot be friends with them ... they touch no chord in my heart." Gradually, though, Berkman's self-imposed distance and moral high ground begins to crumble as he comes to see the flawed humanity in everyone, including himself. The Prison Memoirs is also, in part, a tribute to his relationship with fellow anarchist Emma Goldman, to whom he refers repeatedly throughout the book as "the Girl."[2] She is the only person to maintain correspondence with Berkman in prison, and defends him from criticism on the outside, helping him upon his release. The book tracks the development of Berkman's ideas on political violence, and his ruminations often read like a dialog with Goldman, whom he knows intimately. One of the notable features of the Prison Memoirs is its treatment of homosexuality in prison. Carol Douglas, writing of the book in off our backs, says that Berkman "described how his initial horror at homosexuality in the prison where he was confined gave way to love for another man."[3] In his 2008 study, Free Comrades: Anarchism and Homosexuality in the United States, 1895-1917, Terence Kissack describes Prison Memoirs as "one of the most important political texts dealing with homosexuality to have been written by an American before the 1950s.."... Alexander Berkman (November 21, 1870 - June 28, 1936) was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century, famous for both his political activism and his writing.Berkman was born in Vilna in the Russian Empire (present-day Vilnius, Lithuania) and emigrated to the United States in 1888. He lived in New York City, where he became involved in the anarchist movement. He was the one-time lover and lifelong friend of anarchist Emma Goldman. In 1892, undertaking an act of propaganda of the deed, Berkman made an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate businessman Henry Clay Frick, for which he served 14 years in prison.....
Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist is Alexander Berkman's account of his experience in prison in Western Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, in Pittsburgh, from 1892 to 1906. First published in 1912 by Emma Goldman's Mother Earth press, it has become a classic in autobiographical literature.
In 1892, Alexander Berkman, Russian émigré, anarchist, and lover of Emma Goldman, attempted to assassinate industrialist Henry Clay Frick. The act was intended both as retribution for the massacre of workers in the Homestead strike and as an incitement to revolution. Captured and sentenced to serve a prison term of twenty-two years, Berkman struggled to make sense of the shadowy and brutalized world of the prison-one that hardly conformed to revolutionary expectation.
In 1892, Alexander Berkman, Russian �migr�, anarchist, and lover of Emma Goldman, attempted to assassinate industrialist Henry Clay Frick. The act was intended both as retribution for the massacre of workers in the Homestead strike and as an incitement to revolution. Captured and sentenced to serve a prison term of twenty-two years, Berkman struggled to make sense of the shadowy and brutalized world of the prison-one that hardly conformed to revolutionary expectation.The book covered many topics with the central issue being the prison system. Berkman did a great job describing the prisoners, the prison system and his experience within this system as an anarchist. One of the disturbing things was that even though the book was written in the early 1900's there are many similarities with the way modern prisons are run today.
Kaneko Fumiko (1903-1926) wrote this memoir while in prison after being convicted of plotting to assassinate the Japanese emperor. Despite an early life of misery, deprivation, and hardship, she grew up to be a strong and independent young woman. When she moved to Tokyo in 1920, she gravitated to left-wing groups and eventually joined with the Korean nihilist Pak Yeol to form a two-person nihilist organization. Two days after the Great Tokyo Earthquake, in a general wave of anti-leftist and anti-Korean hysteria, the authorities arrested the pair and charged them with high treason. Defiant to the end (she hanged herself in prison on July 23, 1926), Kaneko Fumiko wrote this memoir as an indictment of the society that oppressed her, the family that abused and neglected her, and the imperial system that drove her to her death.
In 1889 two Russian immigrants, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, met in a coffee shop on the Lower East Side. Over the next fifty years Emma and Sasha would be fast friends, fleeting lovers, and loyal comrades. This dual biography offers an unprecedented glimpse into their intertwined lives, the lasting influence of the anarchist movement they shaped, and their unyielding commitment to equality and justice. Berkman shocked the country in 1892 with "the first terrorist act in America," the failed assassination of the industrialist Henry Clay Frick for his crimes against workers. Passionate and pitiless, gloomy yet gentle, Berkman remained Goldman's closest confidant though the two were often separated-by his fourteen-year imprisonment and by Emma's growing fame as the champion of a multitude of causes, from sexual liberation to freedom of speech. The blazing sun to Sasha's morose moon, Emma became known as "the most dangerous woman in America." Through an attempted prison breakout, multiple bombing plots, and a dramatic deportation from America, these two unrelenting activists insisted on the improbable ideal of a socially just, self-governing utopia, a vision that has shaped movements across the past century, most recently Occupy Wall Street. Sasha and Emma is the culminating work of acclaimed historian of anarchism Paul Avrich. Before his death, Avrich asked his daughter to complete his magnum opus. The resulting collaboration, epic in scope, intimate in detail, examines the possibilities and perils of political faith and protest, through a pair who both terrified and dazzled the world.
Winner of the 2013 New York Book Show Award in Scholarly/Professional Cover Design Jewish Radicals explores the intertwined histories of Jews and the American Left through a rich variety of primary documents. Written in English and Yiddish, these documents reflect the entire spectrum of radical opinion, from anarchism to social democracy, Communism to socialist-Zionism. Rank-and-file activists, organizational leaders, intellectuals, and commentators, from within the Jewish community and beyond, all have their say. Their stories crisscross the Atlantic, spanning from the United States to Europe and British-ruled Palestine. The documents illuminate in fascinating detail the efforts of large numbers of Jews to refashion themselves as they confronted major problems of the twentieth century: poverty, anti-semitism, the meaning of American national identity, war, and totalitarianism. In this comprehensive sourcebook, the story of Jewish radicals over seven decades is told for the first time in their own words.
