Synopses & Reviews
Through his many books on the history of anarchism, Paul Avrich has done much to dispel the public's conception of the anarchists as mere terrorists. In Anarchist Voices, Avrich lets American anarchists speak for themselves. This book contains 180 interviews conducted by Avrich over a period of 30 years, interviews that portray the human dimensions of a movement much maligned by the authorities and contemporary journalists. Most of the interviewees (anarchists as well as their friends and relatives) were active during the heyday of the movement, between the 1880s and the 1930s. They represent all schools of anarchism and include both famous figures and minor ones, previously overlooked by most historians. Their stories provide a wealth of personal detail about such anarchist luminaries as Emma Goldman and Sacco and Vanzetti.
The interviews are grouped in six sections organized around individuals or major aspects of the movement. Each section begins with an explanatory essay, and each interview with a biographical note. Avrich also includes a selected bibliography and a list of anarchist periodicals. This work of impeccable scholarship will be an invaluable resource not only for scholars of anarchism but also for those studying immigration, ethnic politics, the history of education, and legal and labor history.
Review
"
Anarchist Voices draws on interviews with native and foreign-born anarchists that Avrich has been conducting over the past 30 years. . . . Avrich's absorbing collection makes a vital contribution to the history of the American left."
--Library Journal
Review
"The 180 interviewees in this oral history represent diverse political tendencies--individualists, collectivists, pacifists, revolutionaries. What unites them is an optimistic faith that people will live in harmony once the impositions of government disappear. . . . [Paul] Avrich profiles a movement that continues to exercise an appeal with its calls for self-determination, direct grass-roots action and voluntary cooperation."
--Publishers Weekly
Review
"Paul Avrich's
Anarchist Voices . . . achieves some wonderful results."
--The Nation
Review
"This gracefully edited study should interest all students of American radicalism."
--Choice
Review
"The voices in Avrich's book help us to appreciate the central point about anarchism--that it is a cry for social justice."
--Robert D'Attilio, Boston Book Review
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [477]-542) and index.