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Phone 313/831-6800 for hours and more information.
New from Black & Red
Chomsky on Vietnam & Spain
OBJECTIVITY & LIBERAL SCHOLARSHIP
Introduction by Peter Werbe
Written while the Vietnam war was raging, this thin volume, taken from his 1969 American Power and the New Mandarins, exposed his colleagues’ cooperation with the imperial slaughter in Southeast Asia. He also shows that the same ideology distorts the work of scholars who analyze earlier conflicts. His critique of historians of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War includes a stirring account of the anarchist participation which is either ignored or falsified by liberals and stalinists alike. The best short history of the Spanish anarchists’ triumphs and defeats.
Black &Red 142 pp. $6
ALSO NEW
TIMBER WARS by Judi Bari
These are some of the essays that played a role in radicalizing a generation of radical ecology activists. Essays and interviews on Redwood Summer and the bombing which crippled her, on the split in Earth First!, on life in the timber mills, on mainstream environmentalist betrayals of the grassroots movement, on “the feminization of Earth First!,” on monkeywrenching and the decision to renounce tree-spiking, and much more. Proceeds from sale of this book go to the Redwood Justice Fund to continue Judi’s and Darryl Cherney’s lawsuit against the FBI for complicity in the 1990 car bombing.
Common Courage Press, 344 pp. $15
THE BOMB by Frank Harris
Aleister Crowley called this 1909 fictionalized account of the Haymarket bomb incident by the author of My Life and Loves, “the best novel I have ever read.” It is written as a narrative from the uncaught anarchist who threw the explosive which killed the Chicago police attacking 8-hour day protesters and led to the state murder of the five Haymarket martyrs. It contains a right-wing introduction from a 1963 edition by John Dos Passos and an afterword by John Zerzan.
Feral House 213 pp. $13
PEOPLE WITHOUT GOVERNMENT An Anthropology of Anarchism by Harold Barclay
“Ten thousand years ago everyone was an anarchist,” writes Barclay in this engaging book. Barclay covers anarchy among hunter-gatherers, gardeners, herders, agriculturalists and even moderns. He has reservations about primal societies (we would probably disagree with some fundamentals in his description). Yet his “anarcho-cynicalist point of view”—that anarchy may never be attained, and thus “The battle is forever”—is undogmatic, and his citations interesting and appealing.
Kahn & Averill $12.95
BOOKS & ARTICLES ON THE SOVIET UNION & STRUGGLES AGAINST STALINISM
POLAND: 1970-71: Capitalism and Class Struggle by ICO (Henri Simon)
Simon documents and analyzes the Polish worker strikes. Their resistance to the communist state capitalist regime that set the stage for its overthrow ten years later. Normal communist mystifications failed to keep shipyard workers on the job and the revolt overflowed into the streets.
Black & Red 120 pp. $3
POLAND: 1980-82 Class Struggle and the Crisis of Capital by Henri Simon
Simon’s analysis foresaw the political co-optation of the Polish workers’ movement by the Walesa gang even when they paraded as militant opponents of the state. Former dissidents became defenders of Capital and the state. The attempt of Solidarity to keep up with a militant working class is a juggling act worth reading about.
Black & Red 144 pp. $3
HISTORY OF THE MAKHNOVIST MOVEMENT By Peter Arshinov
History of the anarchist peasant revolution in the Ukraine with telling revelations about the nature of “revolutionary” Bolshevik military and social policy. Written by a participant in the movement.
Freedom Press 284 pp. $11
THE STORY OF TATIANA By Jacques Baynac
In 1906, in a Swiss luxury hotel, Tatiana Leontiev, a young aristocratic intellectual, assassinated a French businessman in the mistaken belief he was the Tsar’s Interior Minister. While tracing Tatiana’s life, the book evokes the repression, intrigue, and commitment leading up to the overthrow of Tsarism.
Black &Red 225 pp. $6
MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST by Peter Kropotkin
Kropotkin’s best known work and one of the great works of revolutionary literature. In it, he brings alive the ferment of ideas and movements in the Europe of the late 19th century. If one wishes to know what it was like to be a revolutionary when it meant being relentlessly hounded, banished to Siberia, imprisoned or condemned to death, here is the book.
Dover Publications 557 pp. $12
LETTERS OF INSURGENTS by Fredy Perlman
(written under S. Nachalo & Y. Vochek) Epic in scope and size, Letters examines the human qualities of love, loyalty and solidarity within the crucible of revolution in Soviet Bloc Eastern Europe.
Black &Red 832 pp. $8
THE FALL OF CAPITALISM & THE TRIUMPH OF CAPITAL by David Watson
A radical ecological critique of the soviet megamachine and its collapse. This essay examines the wreckage of state socialism and the continuing dark age of state society, with its unending wars, increasing privation, and relentless destruction of nature.
Spring 1992 Fifth Estate $3
THE ANARCHIST SPECTRE IN EASTERN EUROPE, by David Porter and THEY JUST SAID NO by D.M. Borts
Porter discusses the response of the stalinist politicians to the rising grassroots movements which eventually led to their downfall, while Borts comments on the subjective, radical aspects of the opposition, asking, “Could it be that Western political rulers are as vulnerable as the Eastern European old guard was?” Other articles in this issue: “Detroit: Demolished by Design,” “The Collapse of the Armed Forces,” exchange on environmentalism and revolution, more.
Winter 1990-91 Fifth Estate $3
KRONSTADT 1921 compiled by Rob Blurton
Blurton comments on Boris Yeltsin’s hypocritical establishment of a monument to the revolutionary mutineers, and gathers several contemporary accounts from Voline, Alexander Berkman, and Ida Mett. This excellent issue also contains articles on the zapatista revolt, interviews with Noam Chomsky, and a Daily Barbarian insert.
Summer 1994 Fifth Estate $3
For a complete list of available issues of the FE, send an SASE, or request it with your book order.
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
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 straightforwardly 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. $8
SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL ANTHOLOGY translated & edited by Ken Knabb
A compendium of writings 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.
ECO-DEFENSE: A FIELD GUIDE TO MONKEY WRENCHING edited by Dave Foreman & Bill Haywood
This new, revised and enlarged third edition contains everything the wilderness defenser needs to know about how to disable, dismantle, and destroy the machinery, buildings, etc. of those who are raping the earth for profit. Sabotage techniques are richly detailed with diagrams, first hand accounts and “field notes.”
Ned Ludd Books 311 pp. $20
LIVE WILD OR DIE #6
#6 is just as wild as the first five, with rants, raves and rebellion against civilization and its destruction of the wilderness.
Self-published 48 pp. $3