Published by Chuck on 06 Mar 2008
Illegitimate children of the Enlightenment: anarchists and the French Revolution, 1880-1914
I thought that the following new book looked interesting, particularly given the ongoing debates about the relationship of anarchism to the Enlightenment and the possibility of a postmodern anarchism.
(The book is stupidly expensive and hard to find in any library, although I purchased the author’s dissertation for $34 online. I believe that it is identical to what Peter Lang published).
Illegitimate children of the Enlightenment: anarchists and the French Revolution, 1880-1914
The early years of Third French Republic (1880-1914) saw multiple political factions vying for the legacy of the French Revolution. This book examines one of those factions, the anarchist movement, and the role played by the French Revolution in its political thought and action. The French Revolution became a vital, if not well recognized, tool of the anarchist movement to popularize and legitimize its revolutionary activity while engaged in a struggle with other political forces of the Republic to claim ownership over the Revolutionary heritage. The anarchists of the Third Republic wrote histories of the Revolution that reflected their own political orientation. They asserted themselves as part of the intellectual tradition of the Enlightenment, which they believed had helped spark the Revolution. The anarchists appropriated the music and popular culture of the French Revolution in their own propaganda. Moreover, they orchestrated revolutionary action and political theatre on the day most associated with the Revolution, July 14. In the Revolution, the anarchists saw glimmers of hope, precursors to their own movement, as well as an effective means to present their message to a wider audience as they also offered models for others to imitate.
The Author: C. Alexander McKinley received his Ph.D. in comparative history from Brandeis University in 2006. He is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Geography at St. Ambrose University. McKinley has written on French history as well as on the history of radical movements in Europe.
The early years of Third French Republic (1880-1914) saw multiple political factions vying for the legacy of the French Revolution. This book examines one of those factions, the anarchist movement, and the role played by the French Revolution in its political thought and action. The French Revolution became a vital, if not well recognized, tool of the anarchist movement to popularize and legitimize its revolutionary activity while engaged in a struggle with other political forces of the Republic to claim ownership over the Revolutionary heritage. The anarchists of the Third Republic wrote histories of the Revolution that reflected their own political orientation. They asserted themselves as part of the intellectual tradition of the Enlightenment, which they believed had helped spark the Revolution. The anarchists appropriated the music and popular culture of the French Revolution in their own propaganda. Moreover, they orchestrated revolutionary action and political theatre on the day most associated with the Revolution, July 14. In the Revolution, the anarchists saw glimmers of hope, precursors to their own movement, as well as an effective means to present their message to a wider audience as they also offered models for others to imitate.
One could be excused for thinking that Latin American revolutionaries were all authoritarians in the 1960s and 1970s. Leading figures like Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and
An exciting, new project recently came to my attention: The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest, 1500 – Present. Edited by Immanuel Ness, this eight-volume, 5,000-page, peer-reviewed work will be published by Blackwell next year and is sure to become the definitive reference work for students of social radicalism.