Fifth Estate Books

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Fifth Estate # 348, Fall, 1996

ANARCHY OR CHAOS by George Woodcock

Written as World War II raged around him, Woodcock’s brief history of anarchism is filled with youthful enthusiasm.

Lysander Spooner, 124 pp. $9.50

THE REVOLUTION OF EVERYDAY LIFE, by Raoul Vaneigem

First published in France in 1967, this book complements Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle which appeared the same year. The main programmatic statements of the Situationist International, these works played a large part in the gestation of the French 1968 May events.

Left Bank Books 216 pp. $16

FOUR ARGUMENTS FOR THE ELIMINATION OF TELEVISION by Jerry Mander

Television doesn’t just have “bad” content, but changes how we perceive the world. The result is a loss of the sensuous world and a passive, easily manipulated population.

Quill 371 pp. $9

LIVING MY LIFE by Emma Goldman

The turbulent autobiography of a woman at the center of the century’s major events. Although her life intersected with the famous figures of the era, it is the day-to-day struggles for anarchy which make this account come alive.

Dover 993 pp. (2 volumes) $20

AUTONOMOUS TECHNOLOGY: Technics-Out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought by Langdon Winner

An important guide into the relationship between technology, politics and social change. Winner outlines the paradoxes of technological development, the image of alienation and liberation evoked by machines, and assesses the historical conditions underlying the exponential growth of technology.

M.I.T. Press 386 pp. $15

THE FINAL EMPIRE: The Collapse of Civilization by William H. Kotke

Kotke’s target is the entire course of civilization over the past 10,000 years. Facing the final empire of global corporate capitalism, and its last-gasp exponential curve toward complete ecological exhaustion, Kotke does not despair. He advocates seed communities, new human families based in Permaculture and healing, working together to recover the complex relations with nature and each other, lost in civilization’s millennia of subjugating indigenous peoples.

Arrowpoint Press 396 pp. $15

T.A.Z.: TEMPORARY AUTONOMOUS ZONES; Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism, by Hakim Bey

Proposes a new community which actualizes its will-to-power as disappearance. Bey states that human liberation, beauty and adventure lie beyond the hypocrisies and banalities of our present. A work of relentless imagination.

Autonomedia 141 pp. $7

New Titles

Live Wild Or Die! #6

It was a long time coming!
Turns out this publication and not the FE was the Unabomber’s favorite paper. Oh, well. #6 is just as wild as the first five, with rants and raves and rebellion against civilization and itsdestruction of the wilderness.

Self-published 48 pp. $3

New from Black & Red/Autonomedia

Beyond Bookchin: Preface for a Future Social Ecology by David Watson

Besides providing a thorough critique of Murray Bookchin’s narrow version of social ecology, this wide-ranging essay explores new paths of thinking about radical ecological politics. “…a brilliant, carefully argued critique [which] will do much to restore social ecology’s promise as a broad, liberatory vision.” —John Clark.
“Bookchin is the ElMer Fudd of North American anarchism, and Watson is the Bugs Bunny.” —Hakim Bey.

Black & Red/Autonomedia 256 pp. $8.00

Also by David Watson

HOW DEEP IS DEEP ECOLOGY? With an Essay-Review on Woman’s Freedom by David Watson

Written under the pen-name-George Bradford, this influential essay, which first appeared in the Fall 1987 Fifth Estate, critiques some of the assumptions and politics of deep ecologists and Earth First! activists at that time. Though EF! has evolved considerably since then (for a discussion of EF!’s evolution see page 27 of this issue), this small book remains a useful guide to important themes in ecological politics. It forms a kind of triad with Watson’s essay, “Return of the Son of Deep Ecology” (FE #331, see back issues ad.)

Times Change Press 86 pp. $5.50

MARXISM, FREEDOM, AND THE STATE by Michael Bakunin

In the more than a century since these passages were written, the worship of the state has become -a religion over the globe. We have seen the fulfillment of Bakunin’s gloomy forebodings on the destination of Marxist socialism.:

Freedom Press 63 pp. $3.75

WORKER STUDENT ACTION COMMITTEES: FRANCE, MAY 1968 by R. Gregoire & F. Perlman

A handsome new edition of this 1969 pamphlet. Written after the authors returned from Paris with first hand accounts and lessons of the rebellion which almost toppled the French government, it remains relevant today. The revolutionary activity of the workers and students is contrasted with those forces pitted against them—the state, the unions and the Communist Party.

Black & Red 96 pp. $3

FREE WOMEN OF SPAIN: Anarchism and the Struggle for the Emancipation of Women by Martha Ackelsberg

Ackelsberg traces the efforts by Mujeres Libres (Free Women) to create an independent organization of and for working class women that would empower them to take their places in the revolution and the new society. She argues that the anarchists’ analysis of domination and subordination and the Centrality of notions of community can he important resources for contemporary feminists.

Indiana Univ. Press 256 pp. $15

SOUNDING OFF!: Music as Subversion/Resistance/Revolution, Ron Sakolsky & Fred Wei-han Ho, eds.

Essays and graphics from dozens of writers who are music makers and social critics. Besides theorizing about music and social change, the authors analyze life in “The Belly of the Beast.” The book concludes with essays on “Shattering the Silence of the New World Order.” The back cover proclaims: “We are gathered here together in all our subversive beauty and marvelous diversity, and…Music is our bomb!”

Autonomedia 352 pp. $15

Buy Bi Books, or Bye, Bye Bi Books

FE Books carries a number of titles with radical sexuality and bi-sexuality themes, however, very few are ordered. If we don’t get much response to these offerings, we will assume there either is no interest in them or readers have the information they need on the subject, and we’ll delete them from our catalog.

NEW TITLE

BISEXUAL POLITICS: Theories, Queries & Visions edited by Liz Highleyman and Rebecca Kaplan

The authors (including FE’s Sunfrog), are bisexual activists, historians and theorists whose essays contextualize and deconstruct notions of gender, sexual orientation and identity politics. Historically grounded, they inform, liberate, enlighten, excite, and challenge. Highly recommended.

Harrington Park Press 358 pp. $15

BISEXUALITY: A Reader and Sourcebook, edited by Thomas Geller

An excellent companion to the above titles.

Geller offers personal experiences, philosophical speculations, clinical data, a bibliography, plus lists of organizations and publications.

Times Change Press 186 pp. Reduced: $9

BI ANY OTHER NAME: Bisexual People Speak Out, edited by Loraine Hutchins and Lani Kaahumanu

Rejected by both Gay and Straight worlds, bisexuals have been a community in exile. With this rich and ‘varied collection, bisexual women and men step forward into their own historical spotlight. The writing here deepens a discussion about passion and politics:

Alyson Publications 379 pp. $12

VISION ON FIRE: Emma Goldman on the Spanish Revolution, edited by David Porter

A collection of Goldman’s most significant, yet largely unpublished writings from the tumultuous final four years of her life. A powerful sequel to autobiographical Living My Life, it reveals her struggle with the deep contradictions of the Spanish Revolution. Sexism, violence, a hostile international context, leftist vanguards, popular front strategies, creating the new society, and movement organization are the issues Goldman faced in Spain.

Commonground Press 344 pp. $7.50

HAYMARKET SCRAPBOOK, edited by Dave Roediger & Franklin Rosemont

A large format, profusely illustrated account on the most world-reverberating event in American labor history. It chronicles the Haymarket bombing, the trial and execution of the martyrs, role of women and immigrant Communities in-the defense, sketches of the major personalities, and the event’s heritage. Wonderful photographs, posters and drawings.

Charles H. Kerr 255 pp. (8X11) $19

THIS WORLD WE MUST LEAVE AND OTHER ESSAYS, by Jacques Camatte

A collection of Camatte’s essays available in English. Two decades ago, Camatte straight- forwardly called leftist political organizations and labor unions “rackets.” He depicts a voracious Capital endowed with anthropomorphic needs requiring the domestication of humans.

Autonomedia 256 pp. $9

BEYOND GEOGRAPHY: The Western Spirit Against the Wilderness, by Frederick Turner

Traces the “spiritual history” propelling European decimation of the Western hemisphere’s native peoples, who were as rich in mythic life as the new arrivals were barren. Turner follows the unconscious desire in the Western invaders for the spiritual contentment they sensed in the cultures they destroyed.

Rutgers Univ. Press 329 pp. $15.

SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL ANTHOLOGY, translated & edited by Ken Knabb

A compendium of writing’s by the influential Situationist International group. Included are texts preceding the group’s formation, soundtracks from Guy Debord’s avant-garde films, flyers dating from May 1968 and internal I.S. exchanges. The authors combine wit and insight in their fiery denunciations of bureaucrats, unions, politicians and leftists.

Bureau of Public Secrets 406 pp. $15.

ABC OF ANARCHISM, by Alexander Berkman

This 1929 classic exposes the economic and ideological blinders imposed by capitalist institutions. Still effective is his response to the stereotypical accusation that equates anarchism with violence.

Freedom Press 86 pp. $5

Back issues

Support the FE while increasing your reading pleasure: back issues are $2 each, 6 for $10, 15 for $20. Some issues are in short supply; list one or two alternatives. Bulk quantities of issues #329 through the current issue (except for; #342) are available. 20 Copies or more-at 50 cents each.

#272 (May, 1976)— “Crisis in Health Care: Your Money & Your Life,” part 1, “PBB: Case Study of an Industrial Plague,” Murray Bookchin’s “Myth of the Party.”

#275 (August 1976)—”Unionization in America,” “The Black Sea Monster”, “Polish Food Riots.”

#276 (September 1976)—”Cop Gang vs. Street Gangs,” “Capitalism’s Industrial Plagues,” “Democracy.”

#280 (February 1977)—”Worker Revolts in China,” “More on the Revolt Against Work,” “More on organization,” “Swine Flu Sham Fizzles.”

#282 (April 1977)—”The New Family Therapy,” “The Last SLA Statement,” “Multinational Unions,” “Criticism/Self-Criticism.”

#288 (December 1977)—”Terrorism: the State Marches On,” “More on Revolutionary Violence,” “The Revolt of the Animals,” “A Punk’s Essay,” “Punk: Musical Fad or Radical Kernel?”

#292 (June 1978)—”QUBE TV: Pushbutton 1984,” “Against Realism & Its Causes,” “Technology & Capitalism: America by Design,” “Aldo No Moro,” “We Demand.”

#293/294 (August 1978)—”Pope Perishes,” “The Return of the. Social Revolution,” “Economic Crisis & Revolution,” “American Anarchism.”

#295 (November 1978)—”Easy Come, Easy Go: Death of a Pope,” “The Battle of France: May 1968,” “The CNT in Modern Spain,” “You May Be the Victim of an Art Attack.”

#296 (January 1979)—”State Fetishism: Concerning the Red Army Faction;” “Jonestown: An Epilogue,” “Coke ‘Adds Life.. to Communism” (poster).

#299 (October 1979)—Industrial Plague Widens,”‘ “Warning to the Pope,” “Lasch’s War of All Against All: The Culture of Narcissism,” John Zerzan’s “The Practical Marx,” “It’s Raining Stockbrokers.”

#301 (February 1980)—”Carter’s Phony War Crisis,” “Fuck the Draft!” (poster), “Take This Census & Shove It,” “More on Narcissism.”

#302 (June 1980)—John Zerzan’s “The Promise of the ’80s,” also “Debate on Feminism,” “Stay Where You Are.”

#303 (October 1980)—”U.S./U.S.S.R. Prepare for Doomsday,” Zerzan’s “The Refusal of Technology,” “Poland: Triumph & Defeats,” “Salamanders’ for Allah.”

#306 (July 1981)—Special issue on technology: David Watson’s “Against the Megamachine,” “Marxism, Anarchism & the New Totalitarianism,” “Technological-Invasion,” “Indigenism & Its Enemies,” Bob Brubaker’s “Community, Primitive Society and the State,” reviews, etc.

#308 (January 1982)—Special Anti-nuke war issue: “Draft Law at Standstill,” Lewis Hyde and P. Solis on “Gift Exchange & the Imagination,” “Poland Under Martial Law: What Next for Solidarity?,” reviews of Richard Drinnon’s Facing West, Burchill and Parsons’ The Boy Looked at Johnny: The Obituary of Rock and Roll,” more.

#311 (Winter 1982-83)—excerpt from Fredy Perlman’s “Against His-Story, Against Leviathan,” David Watson on “Societies on the Brink” and “Norman Mayer & the Missile X,” Maple’s “The Pain of America and the Tylenol Killings.”

#312 (Spring 1983)—”FE Tool of the Year the Sledgehammer,” “Pentagon War Plans on Automatic,” “Notes on ‘Soft Tech,'” Stanley Diamond on “Primitive vs. Civilized War: Contrasts,” Bob Brubaker’s “A Family Quarrel.”

#313 (Fall 1983)—Mary Wildwood on “Detroit: High Tech & the Widening Gyre,” “World-Wide Crisis: Is the Recovery Really Here?” Zerzan’s “Beginning of Time, End of Time,” and discussion, E.B. Maple reviews books on Israel.

#314 (Fall 1983)-The Euromissiles & the Fate of the Earth,” T. Fulano’s “Civilization is Like a Jetliner,” “Exchange on Israel, ” “Sex & Pain,” Watson’s “A Response on Time,” Zerzan’s “The ‘Eighties So Far.”

#318 (Fall 1984)—”Elections Over—Gov’t Rule Wins,” “Criminals & Anarchists,” David Watson’s “Media: Capital’s Global Village,” “Emma Goldman In Spain,” Brubaker’s “The Baseball Riots.”

#319 (Winter 1984)—”We All Live in Bhopal,” “Birds Combat Civilization,” Perlman’s “The Continuing Appeal of Nationalism,” “Anarchy in SF.”

#322 (Spring 1986)—”20 Years of the Fifth Estate,” “Space Not the Place,” “Zionism & Jewish Ideals,” “Anarchism in the Age of Reagan,” “Fascist Youth Gangs.”

#323 (Summer 1986)—”Anarchy in Chicago,” “Resistance to the Plan is Heavy: Detroit’s Trash Incinerator,” “Mutinies Can Stop U.S. Wars,” “Spain ’36,” “Christians to the Lions,” “Space Not the Place” part 2, “Kent State.”

#324 (Fall 1986)—”Kids—Say No to Gov’t,” “Critique of FE: Are We Losing It?” “The Case Against Art,” “Books on Revolution & Violence,” “A Pogrom Against Voodoo,” “Review of Perlman’s The Strait,” “We Brought Our Piss to Reagan.”

#325 (Spring 1987)—”Anarchy & the Left,” “Three Cases for Art” (responses to Zerzan) William Kotke’s “Earth Diet: Earth Culture,” “Aberration: The Automobile,” “I Didn’t Go to Work Today” (poster) “Go Wild.”

#326 (Summer 1987)—”Anarchy In Minneapolis,” E. B. Maple’s “Race, Class & Crime in the U.S.: The Goetz Case,” “Did the U.S Cause AIDS?” Richard Drinnon’s “The Metaphysics of Dancing Tribes,” “U.S.: War-to-War Salesmen,” “Letter from Chernobyl.”

#328 (Spring 1988)—Lynne Clive’s “Palestine: Legacy of Conquest,” “Delving Deeper Into Deep Ecology,” “An Exchange on Deep Ecology & Population,” “Women’s Freedom: Key to the Population Question,” “Earth First! and the Problem of Language,” “Anarchy & -the Sacred” (an exchange), “Barcelona May ’37.”

#329 (Summer 1988)—”Anarchy in Toronto,” “Stopping the Incinerator, Starting the Movement,” “Industrial Domestication,” “France: May ’68,” “Deep Ecology Debate Continues/Earth Firsters Respond,” Zerzan’s “Agriculture: Essence of Civilization,” E.B. Maple on Ed Abbey.

#330 (Winter 1988-89)—”Palestine: The Future of a Rebellion,” “Live Wild or Die—The Other Earth First!,” Bob Brubaker and John Zerzan debate agriculture, critique of the theory of capitalist decadence, articles on the Yellowstone fires, anarchy in Korea, the 1988 elections, anti-incinerator strategies, poetry, more.

#331 (Spring 1989)—Special issue on deep ecology and environmental ethics: David Watson’s “Return of the Son of Deep Ecology: The Ethics of Permanent Crisis and the Permanent Crisis in Ethics,” “Cheerleaders for the Plague” (Earth First! and AIDS), “The Question of Agriculture” (reply to Zerzan and others).

#332 (Summer 1989)—E.B. Maple’s “Burn All Flags,” Ward Churchill’s “Unmasking the Custer Myth,” “Anarchy on the Sacred 2” (continuing debate), Kropotkin on the French Revolution, articles on mass actions at the Nevada test site and Detroit trash incinerator, the San Francisco 1989 anarchist gathering, anarchist youth in the Spanish Revolution, poetry, more.

#333 (Winter 1990)—Watson’s “Stopping the Industrial Hydra: Revolution Against the Megamachine,” also “FE meets EF! in New Mexico,” “The RSL Is Dead; Long Live the RSL,” Gabriel Dumont’s “China: The Mysterious Journey of the Democracy Movement,” review of Wexler’s Emma Goldman in Exile, debate on the 1989 SF anarchist gathering, more.

#334 (Summer 1990)—Earth Day Special insert (includes Watson’s “Earth Day? We Want a Festival of the Oppressed,” Rudolf Bahro’s “Who Can Stop the Apocalypse?,” Maple’s critique of recycling and liberal reform), also “Bombing Won’t Stop Redwood Summer,” “Earth Day Action,” David Porter on Emma. Goldman, David Watson and Allan Foster- on Fredy Perlman, Rob Blurton on the Black Panthers and Michael Moore, anarchy in Italy, more.

#335 Winter 1990-91)—M. Rashid’s “Detroit: Demolished by Design,” “War in Iraq: Imperial Death Trip to Nowhere,” Alice Detroit on “The Anarchist Spectre in Eastern Europe,” exchange on environmentalism and revolution, “The Sand Creek Massacre,” “The Collapse of the Armed Forces in Vietnam,” articles on Redwood Summer and the split in Earth First!, book reviews, more.

#336 (Spring 1991)—David Watson’s “Civilization in Bulk: Empire & Ecological Destruction,” and “These Are Not Our Troops; This Is Not Our Country,” Maple’s “Why the U.S. Destroyed Iraq,” and “The Lessons of Vietnam,” Blurton’s “Marked Cards in the Middle East,” also Murray Bookchin’s “The Myth of the Party,” “French Radical Sabotage Prison Project,” Sunfrog’s “Operation Gender Blur,” much more. One of our best issues!

#337 (Summer 1991)—E.B. Maple’s “Post-War Postmortem—How the U.S. Got Away with It,” Mitchell Cohen on Gulf War resisters, Graham Purchase on “Kropotkin’s Metaphysics of Nature;” poetry, book reviews of John Seed and Joanna Macey, John Moore, Ed Abbey and Ken Knabb/ Kenneth Rexroth, critique of Noam Chomsky, etc.

#338 (Winter 1992)—”Plenitude and Penury in Detroit,” “Patriarchy and Progress” (Ariel Salleh interviews German ecofeminist Maria Mies), articles on People’s Park, Gulf War resisters, pirate radio in Detroit, James Bay II, Germinal Garcia, Attica, poetry, book reviews, etc.

#339 (Spring 1992)—Watson’s “The Fall of Communism, The Triumph of Capital,” Jack Straw on Oliver Stone’s JFK, Mary Wildwood on Jerry Mander, articles on Alexander Berkman, AIDS, bioregionalism, Spanish anarcha-feminism, Leonard Peltier.

#340 (Autumn 1992)—Sunfrog on “Pornography & Pleasure,” David Watson’s “1492-1992: Fall of the 500-Year Reich”, articles on anti voting, Earth first!, LA riots, exchange on AIDS, exchange on marxism and ecofeminism.

#341 (Spring 1993)—Max Cafard’s Classic “Surregionalist- Manifesto,” Maple on Somalia, Watson on the 1992 elections, G. Doebler on Alexander Berkman, Mitchell Cohen on toxic impperialism, more.

#342 (Summer 1993)—Special issue on Dope, “Queer Sex & Anarchy: Queer (de)Manifesto,” “Will Marijuana Save World Capitalism?” etc., also Maple’s “We Get a Computer & Hate It,” Saral Sakar on industrialism and the German greens, more.

#343 (Fall/Winter 1993)—Rob Blurton on Bosnia and Somalia, also “The Revolt of the Bats,” On Gogol Boulevard (Anarchy in Eastern Europe), articles on the PLO/Israeli treaty, the McLibel campaign, the split in Love & Rage, repression in Chattanooga, reviews of Kotke’s The Final Empire and Hakim Bey.

#344 (Summer 1994)—T. Fulano on the zapatistas, Blurton and Maple on America’s romance with guns, interviews with Noam Chomsky and Godfrey Reggio, articles on Vietnam, the Kronstadt Rebellion, the LA earthquake, On Gogol Boulevard, Daily Barbarian insert (Watson’s “Thoughts on the Disappearance of History,” poetry by Alise Alousi, Richard Nixon obituary by Mr. Venom, more).

#345 (Winter 1995)—Watson’s “Catching Fish in Chaotic Waters: Empire & Mass Society,” also Sunfrog’s “Treatise on Anarchy & the Net: Arguments for the Elimination of the Information Age,” obituary of Guy Debord, On Gogol Boulevard, Hakim Bey on Permanent Autonomous Zones, special anti-nuke supplement including work by Perlman, Blurton, Maple, Fulano, etc.

#346 (Summer 1995)—David Watson and Richard Drinnon on Vietnam 20 years after the fall of Saigon, Maple on the militias; the Oklahoma Bombing and the Unabomber, On Gogol Boulevard, Zerzan on tv and Ishmael, Alon K. Raab on the 1919 Centralia Massacre, Rob Blurton on military mutinies, UK anti-road campaign, more.

#347 (Spring 1996)—Peter Werbe’s “History of the FE,” Max Cafard’s “The Dragon of Brno: Fredy Perlman Against History’s Leviathan,” Michael William on nationalist plague in Quebec, Rob Blurton on WWI repression, E.B. Maple on the Detroit newspaper strike, Sunfrog on the mudpeople, articles on Leon Czolgosz, paradise gardening, book reviews on Arab-American women, bisexuality, recent poetry, etc.

FE Books

Fifth Estate Books is located at 4632 Second Avenue, just south of W. Forest, in Detroit, in the same space as the Fifth Estate Newspaper. Hours vary, so please call before coming by.

HOW TO ORDER BY MAIL

1) List the title of the book, quantity, and the price of each;

2) add 10% for mailing costs—not less than $1.24 U.S. or $1.60 foreign (minimum for 4th class book rate postage);

3) total;

4) write check or money order to: Fifth Estate;

5) mail to: Fifth Estate, 4632 Second Ave., Detroit MI 48201 USA. Phone 313/831-6800 for hours and more information.

SUPPORT THE FE & OWN A PIECE OF HISTORY: SPECIAL OFFER ON BACK ISSUES 1965-1975

These random issues contain fascinating articles on ’60s music and the counter-culture, radical movements (antiwar, new left, black revolutionary, feminist, etc.), GI revolts, government repression, sexual revolution, weird ads, comics, more. The papers are old but in decent shape. Mixed assortment for $2 each, 3 for $5, 10 for $10, 20 for $15, 40 for $25.

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