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.
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For those interested, I’ve been in contact with the author of this book and he informed me that there are slight differences between his dissertation and the work published by Peter Lang. He revised the prose; tried to help orient readers who are less familiar with French history; and included some images. I’m going to stick with his dissertation, because I’m unable to access the Lang book, but I’d recommend getting the latter if you can.