Publishing date of "Black Flame: the Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism & Syndicalism"

AK Press (USA) to release book on February 15

Black Flame is the first of two volumes that re-examine anarchism's democratic class politics, its vision of a decentralized planned economy, and its impact on popular struggles in five continents over the last 150 years. From the ninenteenth century to today's anticapitalist movements, it traces anarchism's insights into questions of race, gender, class, and imperialism, significantly reframing the work of previous historians on the subject, and critiquing Marxist approaches to these same questions.

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Publishing date of "Black Flame: the Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism & Syndicalism"

Black Flame is the first of two volumes that re-examine anarchism's democratic class politics, its vision of a decentralized planned economy, and its impact on popular struggles in five continents over the last 150 years. From the ninenteenth century to today's anticapitalist movements, it traces anarchism's insights into questions of race, gender, class, and imperialism, significantly reframing the work of previous historians on the subject, and critiquing Marxist approaches to these same questions. The authors are both founders of the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation (now the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front) in South Africa. Includes a preface by Scottish anarchist veteran Stuart Christie who was arrested in Spain in 1964 in an anarchist plot to assassinate Franco, and who helped re-establish the Anarchist Black Cross in 1968 and the journal Black Flag after his release.

"This highly worthwhile book represents the fruit of considerable scholarship and deep reflection. The authors have done a remarkable job in drawing together a vast international body of literature. They show convincingly that anarchism and syndicalism were far more significant political forces in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century world than historians have generally given them credit for. They provide excellent accounts of the movement's global political reach, supported by an impressive knowledge of disparate literatures. Schmidt and van der Walt also make a powerful and lucidly written case for anarchism as a serious and coherent political philosophy."—Prof Jonathan Hyslop, deputy director, Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER), University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

Dr Lucien van der Walt teaches sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
Michael Schmidt is a Johannesburg-based senior investigative journalist and journalism trainer.

http://www.akpress.org/2007/items/blackflameakpress