The Anarchist Expropriators

The Anarchist Expropriators details a series of Robin Hood-like tales of daring heists and high-minded ideals that at the same time uncovers aspects of anarchist and Argentine history. It includes the story of Spanish revolutionary Durruti's time in Argentina before his return home to fight in the Spanish Civil War. In early 20th-century Argentina, anarchist expropriators employed direct, violent means to fund the production of books and other forms of propaganda. Bayer tells a sympathetic and thrilling story of crimes committed in the name of justice.

Osvaldo Bayer's study of working-class retribution, set between 1919 and 1936, chronicles hair-raising robberies, bombings, and tit-for-tat murders conducted by Argentina's working men. Intense repression of labor organizations, newspapers, and meeting places by authorities set off a wave of illegal acts meant to secure funds and settle scores. Escaping similar repression at home, future Spanish Civil War hero Buenaventura Durruti joins the cast on a spree of robberies, ending in a narrow escape back to Europe. Osvaldo Bayer is an anarchist pacifist, author, and screenwriter living in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is the author of Rebellion in Patagonia (forthcoming from AK Press).

Direct Action in Montevideo is the astonishing tale of anarchists willing to use extraordinary methods to achieve their goals. Seen as mere criminals by the legal system, the author met many of them in prison, where he was serving his own sentence. Politicized by his experiences, he went on to eventually write their story, which was also the story of a culture of solidarity and resistance in the face of oppression. These men were rebels who violated the norms of a social order they considered unjust, often responding to the violence of exploitation and immiseration with a violence of their own, robbing banks to fund revolutionary activities, planting bombs, fighting strikebreakers, aiding fugitives, and attacking, even assassinating, bosses and political figures.

Octavio Alberola has spent over eighty years thinking, living, and formulating his life from an anarchist perspective. He belongs to a generation of protagonists in some of the twentieth century’s most notable events: the Spanish Revolution, the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, the internal conflicts of the international anarchist movement, and the great social struggles around the world. He was exiled to Mexico as a youth, and knows the precariousness of a life lived underground. His acquaintances include García Oliver, Che Guevara, Cipriano Mera, Federica Montseny, Félix Guattari, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Régis Debray, Stuart Christie, Rigoberta Menchú, and Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. In this remarkable, layered biography, Agustín Comotto sits you at the feet of a veteran militant, as content to recall dramatic exploits as to discuss art, physics, family life, or political history. Born in 1928 and active in social struggles since he was a teenager, Alberola conveys hard-earned lessons. Most important of all: never countenance pessimism.

Though the history of terrorism stretches back to the ancient world, today it is often understood as a recent development. Comprehensive enough to serve as a survey for students or newcomers to the field, yet with enough depth to engage the specialist, The Routledge History of Terrorism is the first single-volume authoritative reference text to place terrorism firmly into its historical context. Terrorism is a transnational phenomenon with a convoluted history that defies easy periodization and narrative treatment. Over the course of 32 chapters, experts in the field analyze its historical significance and explore how and why terrorism emerged as a set of distinct strategies, tactics, and mindsets across time and space. Chapters address not only familiar topics such as the Northern Irish Troubles, the Palestine Liberation Organization, international terrorism, and the rise of al-Qaeda, but also lesser-explored issues such as: American racial terrorism state terror and terrorism in the Middle Ages tyrannicide from Ancient Greece and Rome to the seventeenth century the roots of Islamist violence the urban guerrilla, terrorism, and state terror in Latin America literary treatments of terrorism. With an introduction by the editor explaining the book’s rationale and organization, as well as a guide to the definition of terrorism, an historiographical chapter analysing the historical approach to terrorism studies, and an eight-chapter section that explores critical themes in the history of terrorism, this book is essential reading for all those interested in the past, present, and future of terrorism.

Lenin's most important and controversial theoretical text Lenin’s booklet The State and Revolution struck the world of Marxist theory like a lightning bolt. Written in the months running up to the October Revolution of 1917, Lenin turned the traditional socialist concept of the state on its head, arguing for the need to smash the organs of the bourgeois state to create a ‘semi-state’ of soviets, or workers’ councils, in which ordinary people would take on the functions of the state machine in a new and radically democratic manner. This new edition includes a substantial introduction by renowned theorist Antonio Negri, who argues for the continued relevance of these ideas.

Anarchism is a significant but relatively neglected of political thought. April Carter examines the anarchist critique of the state, of bureaucracy, of democratic government and contrasts this attitude with more orthodox political theory. She also considers anarchist theories and social and economic organization, the relevance of anarchism to contemporary conditions and the problems of idealism in politics.