Name: Demanding the Impossible
ISBN: 9781604860641

Peter Marshall

Offers the history and ideology of anarchism, which is based on the philosophy that individuals should be able to manage their lives without the involvement of a government.

A History of Anarchism

Demanding the Impossible

Peter H. Marshall

Anarchism is a philosophical and political creed which many individuals have subscribed to over the centuries, and for which many have been persecuted by other more authoritive ideologies like fascism and state socialism. There have been anarchist-inspired revolutions - in Spain, in the Ukraine, in Mexico - which have in turn led to (however short-lived) anarchist administrations. But anarchism's power has, first and foremost, been the power of the lone protestor, the dissenter who is unafraid to expose himself to reprisal for the sake of preaching the real gospel of liberty, equality and fraternity which so many so-called revolutionaries usually leave in tatters once they graduate from barricades to corridors of power. The author argues that the spirit of anarchism is in the voice of Tolstoy, of Gandhi, of Bakunin and of Godwin, of Camus and of Chomsky.

Demanding the Impossible A History of Anarchism