Activism Books

This book highlights the career of one of the pioneer jurists in the civil rights era of American justice. Raised in the height of southern poverty and a disciple of constitutional governmental principles, this book will give those with a belief in truth and rock hard constitutional principles an inspiration to make a difference in the world in which they live.

This book is probably the best overview of academic--particularly sociological--theory on the global justice movement. Indeed, to my knowledge, there is only one other book--Bandy and Smith's /Coalitions Across Borders/, and it focuses mainly on transnational coalition building in the global justice movement; this book, on the other hand, tries to take in all the issues that might be of concern to academic theorists. Like most such collections, it's a mixed bag, with individual chapters varying in quality from three to five stars. There is only one really bad one, Johnson and McCarthy's piece, which uses organziational ecology or organizational population theory, an approach I find to be shallow. The really oustanding chapters are Sikkink's on how nation-states and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs, like the EU and IMF) interact to create complex, multi-level opportunity structures; della Porta's on how global justice activists are forging a new type of activist identity, one that is inclusive, tolerant, and flexible, rather than being narrowly defined; and Bennett's on the two generations of transnational activism, the first organized around professional advocacy groups, the second around voluntary direct action groups, and the tensions between them. Della Porta and Tarrow do a nice job in the final chapter of bringing the strands from the various chapters together to create an overall theoretical picture of this second generation transnational activism. They elaborate on Sikkink's ideas, describing what they call a complex internationalism, that includes the interactions of nation-states, IGOs, and "non-state actors"; they discuss the highly networked, participatory-democratic organization of the global justice and peace movements, and reaffirm della Porta's ideas about flexible identities; and they note that, rather than a global civil society emerging, what we are seeing is the emergence of rooted cosmopolitans--most activism remains locally rooted, but activists are concerned with the state of the world and so join transnational networks. The biggest weakness of this volume is its almost total focus (except in Sikkink's chapter) on the movement in the first world, a long standing problem with social movement theory in sociology. Given the importance of third world movement in the new transnational activism, this is really something prominent scholars like the ones in this volume should do something to address.

This is a good book for the general reader and the undergraduate interested in left/anarchist politics. In a concise manner it deals with the issues and historical climate the Class War Federation established itself in, in Britain. Covering the history of capitalism and class struggles, plus Ireland and all the new 'issues' it is a good starting point for those who want to know more after the recent activities in Seattle, Washington and London. The book retained its approach all the way through, taking an objective working class point of view as its guiding principle.

This is a real "how to" book that provides very concrete advice about how to make change through political and civic action. If you have ever thought about running for office, this book will help you understand what it takes to prepare yourself to be a candidate or to run a campaign. It also includes recommendations for "activism" on a much smaller scale. One of their suggestions is to form a charitable investment club with friends where you pool your resources to analyze and then contribute to deserving charities in your community.

The book does an excellent job of discussing the women whose high risk behaviors, not identities, are thought to spread HIV to some. The authors are racially diverse and there is a blend of professional writers and everyday contributors. I've seen many anthologies discuss straight women and lesbians, or bisexual women and lesbians, but this is the first book that I've seen with chapters devoted to straight women, bisexuals, and lesbians. Many lament the absence of racial and class-based matters in most women's studies text. However, when these writers say that AIDS activism needs to be culturally sensitive, multilingual, and designed for women of limited funds, it tries to address multiple identities, not just biological sex.

Although the book is edited by ACT-UP, it doesn't not have the radical style of a Larry Kramer or Michael Signorile. The chapters are professionally edited and full of scientific references. This book is a solid example of women's studies, not a loud manifesto that many apprehensive readers may fear. I do think the title is misleading as "activism" does not come close to consisting of one-third of this text.

This book may feel incredibly dated. To begin, ACT-UP hasn't been in the spotlight in the way it had been in the late 1980s. This work was published when AZT was the only medicine for AIDS; the new and more effective HAART regimen was not released yet. The authors continually lament that not enough research on women and HIV has been done, but I imagine now that it has, especially as HIV has risen so sharply in developing countries.

I enjoyed this book a lot. It was fact-filled but not impenetrable. Those concerned about American women and HIV may wanted to read it, despite its dated nature.

Your contention, "[Chomsky's] infamy is merited for his lack of loyalty to his own Jewish ethnicity and the U.S.," is telling, as an index of both extreme right (read: 'arrogant') entitlement Statism, as well as your own personal lapse of reason. That is, an individual's loyalty is owed not to any institution, authority, or State (i.e., no ethic inheres via the neurotic, mass obedience you suggest). Rather, an individual's loyalty is owed--FIRST AND FOREMOST--to what their own informed conscience compels. For Chomsky--as scientist, as educator--this rule abides. "'Twas ever thus..."

Noam Chomsky has thrived greatly in this great country of his, yours, and mine - the United States of America. He has made millions of dollars teaching, lecturing, selling his books, and investing. His world-wide fame in psycholinguistics is well-deserved. His infamy is merited for his lack of loyalty to his own Jewish ethnicity and the U.S., in spite of the fruits he has received by being a citizen of the United States. He has repaid this country in bile with his incredibly biased analysis of American foreign policy. He goes way beyond a balanced multiculturism, when he always ranks the U.S. and Israel as foremost among the terrorist forces in the world now, and even in history. His distrust of any authority, benign or otherwise, is reflected in his dogmatic and unexamined support of the "underdog," even if that underdog is a suicide bomber or a major terrorist organization such as Al Queda or Hezbollah. Chomsky's moral equivalence of Israel defending itself and accidently killing civilians as the same as Terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah deliberately killing civilians is moral insanity.

Yet since 1955, hypocrite Chomsky has worked for the "overdog" Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which has actively and enthusiastically participated in the development of weapons of War and mass destruction, and continues to this very day.

Chomsky trumps his own potential for gifted analytic objectivity with his simple hatred of the United States and the Jewish State.

If he were not so attached to the freedom of making money, earning the adulation of the American Left, and freedom to express himself, he might be able to give more direct and personal support for our enemies and his friends by taking up residence in North Korea, Iran, or Syria. Let us hope he retires outside of our homeland that he hates so much, the United States of America.

God Bless America, which will continue to give Chomsky the right to speak, teach, and make lots of money.

Rayboy

Noam Chomsky has been a pioneer in the field of linguistics. He helped restore a rationalistic approach to the subject. Chomsky came up with the concept of context-free grammars, and developed many of their properties. He has backed the idea that language acquisition in humans is largely innate, and the evidence for this idea seems to be increasing. He's a very bright person who has made many genuine scholarly contributions to society.

Even Chomsky's approach to social issues has had some positive aspects. While many people have addressed national policy issues principally in pragmatic terms, Chomsky has emphasized moral issues. He has wisely advised us to avoid resolving debates on moral issues purely on pragmatic grounds. And he has advised us to be wary of the role of the media in obtaining popular consent for dubious policies.

But this book is useless trash.

Sure, there are plenty of details about what Chomsky thinks of Arab-Israeli peace, and sure, I disagree with plenty of what he says, but the main problem is the lack of any credible basis for evaluating where we stand. Before we can even consider solutions to the Arab war against Jewish rights in the region, we need to apply some facts and logic. This is something Chomsky could have done extremely well, but he chose not to do that.

Chomsky says in this book that both sides can make a persuasive case. Well, I suppose one could claim that both the Blacks and the Ku Klux Klan can make a persuasive case. But those of us who support human rights are not going to be persuaded by the claims of the Ku Klux Klan or by Arab racists into oppressing Southern Blacks or Middle Eastern Jews.

Now, here are some facts and logic that Chomsky appears to have chosen not to consider:

Humans who have an interest in buying land and the means to do so will often buy land and improve it. Land that is for sale often goes to the high bidders. The high bidders tend to have the biggest interest in making good use of that land. Jews are humans. Jews wanted land in the Levant and were willing to pay very high prices for it. And they bought land for those prices.

Human rights include property rights. If racists are going to be allowed to steal land from Blacks, Jews, or other minorities, that will violate property rights for everyone.

Israel became a nation because Great Britain came up with the White Paper of 1939, which kept large numbers of Jews from moving to the Levant. This cost most of these Jews their lives and convinced almost all of the survivors that the only way to support human rights in the Levant was to have an independent state there that would allow Jews to have rights. Since Jews are humans, repudiation of Jewish rights is a repudiation of human rights. Needless to say, human rights do not preclude Arab rights. Quite the contrary. Arabs are humans and repudiation of Arab rights would repudiate human rights.

Israel is land-poor. That is a fairly well-defined concept. Namely, if everyone in the world actually owned the land they lived on but had to put it up for sale to the highest bidder (which in many cases would be themselves, since they would be paying themselves for the land), in peacetime, Jews would buy up more of the Levant than they have now. Unless violence is employed to do something about Israelis, they'll wind up with a little more land, not a little less land. There are five million Jews in Israel now, and in peacetime, even more Jews might want to move there. And the amount of territory five million people in that region tend to be sovereign in is well over 11,000 square miles.

That is what truth, justice, facts, logic, and human rights tell us.

It is true that many Jews lost land in the past century. So did some Arabs. I could argue that the Jews tended to lose it in wars of aggression against them, while the Arabs tended to lose it in wars of aggression by them. But, I think that is irrelevant. Most of the victims are long dead now, and I think it is time to close that chapter. However, it is preposterous and counterproductive to indict only the victims of such crimes, and reward the villains. And I think we ought to find something better to do than that.

Part 1 is a reprint of Chomsky's 1974 book, Peace in the Middle East? examining the 1967 war and its results. Part 2 looks at the same themes of Israel, Palestine and the US role, from the perspective of 2002. Part 3 studies the world after 9/11 and the `war on terror'.

Israel, like most US dependencies, has huge inequality, great and growing poverty, high and rising unemployment, falling wages and worsening working conditions. It constantly expands its illegal settlements in the occupied territories, cuts the Palestinians' water quotas, and imprisons Palestinians in areas sealed by a net of bypass roads meant for Jews only.

Israel organises torture, terror, the destruction of tens of thousands of homes, and detentions without trial. Under Israeli occupation, Palestine's unemployment has doubled, investment has halved, income is down 20%, and GNP is down 40%. When the Security Council reaffirmed that the 4th Geneva Convention applies to occupied territories, Clinton abstained.

In mid-September 2000, the US shipped attack helicopters to Israel, and US Marines conducted joint exercises with elite units of the Israeli Defence Force. On 29 September, Sharon made his infamous, government-authorised visit to the Temple Mount, with a thousand armed guards. On 3 October, Israel signed its biggest arms deal for a decade, buying 35 Blackhawk military helicopters from the USA. In February 2001, Israel bought nine Apache attack helicopters. Curiously, this huge backing for Israel went virtually unreported.

In December 2001, the USA vetoed a Security Council Resolution calling for international monitors to oversee a reduction in violence. The USA has consistently rejected a Palestinian state: as elsewhere, nationalism is its enemy.

The USA is repeating the British Empire's Middle Eastern failures. Dean Acheson said that Britain `may act as our lieutenant (the fashionable word is partner)'. Britain is still the lieutenant in Iraq; Israel is now the lieutenant in Palestine, bleeding from its doomed struggle to kill off Palestinian sovereignty. In its Middle East colonies and dependencies, the British Empire created an `Arab façade' to have `the outward semblance of sovereignty'. Now the USA does the same in Iraq.

I have not read this book. I have read other books and articles by Noam Chomsky and listened to some of his speeches. While I sympathize with many of his views--I do not necessarily subscribe to all of them.

My reason for writing this review is that I discovered what I consider an unethical use of Amazon's reader reviewing space. I read the reviews under the assumption that the reviewer has actually read the book. The reason I read the reviews is to find out what the readers thought of the book. I'm sincerely interested in what honest readers have to say--whether they are of the right, left, or mushy middle political persuasion.

Cutting and pasting the same review of the same author--Chomsky in this case--for 10 different books of Chomsky's is outrageous! The reviewer in this case, Raymond T. Keen, was even too lazy to edit the 11 total reviews to make an attempt to show that he had actually read all 11 books.

I don't care if the reviewer hates Chomsky. That's his right. However, he doesn't have the ethical right to deceive the rest of the Amazon readers with the implied claim that he's read all 11 of the reviewed books. Actually, I'm skeptical that he's read any books of Chomsky's. Given the reviewer's obvious laziness and inartful ability at deception, I would suggest that he submit his resume to the present administration in Washington, DC.

I recommend this book to anyone who has had that gnawing feeling that something is not quite right in this country we love. Do you think the big corporations have too much power? Is the middle class disappearing? What did our founders really intend when they created the separation of powers? Did we lose control of our country...and how can we get it back? David Sirota writes about pockets of discontent that are beginning to bubble and boil all over the country. Small uprisings that are having an effect on corporations, in state policies, and in Congress. If you thought you were alone, read this book and find out that others are sharing your concern...in one way or another. This book will stir you up and widen your eyes. I learned so much from each chapter and had a good laugh or two along the way. David Sirota is a great writer who has his ear to the ground and shares his wealth of knowledge in this book. Read it.

David Sirota's book is a caricacature like his "debating" style which tends to devolve into angry, hissy fits and babyish shrieks.

This subject matter really deserves a much more developed mind, and composed personality. Everything is slapped together, and stolen from real thinkers who've treated the subject as it deserves. For substance, turn to the amazing Thomas Frank.

Sirota's writing is as poor and incoherent as his personal appearances which are ever more increasingly red faced and angry, infantile and ridiculous. He's just an angry, terrible thinker. I'm so glad this book was borrowed because it was really not good. I would recommend any other authors suggested by people here. Some (not all, certainly) of the positive reviews must be friends and family.

While I enjoyed David Sirota's most recent work "The Uprising." It often left me feeling incensed at our government's inclination to the status quo and then feeling relieved that there are still individuals working within our government who recognize and work for the greater good of the American people. "The Uprising" reads like a first person account or David Sirota's experience with each group. At the same time, this book fails to tie together the various uprisings it describes, common themes and methodology that works or does not work. It requires the reader to search and reread passages for this message. Very little is done to summarize all that has been read or build a conclusive point. If the book's design is a call to action for change its messages is as disorganized as the anti-war protest described in his book.

You will learn something new from reading this book. David Sirota provides first hand accounts of populist movements around the US. I learned about the Working Family Party in New York and fusion. I also got a new perspective on Washington driven faux uprisings vs. real uprisings.

The book has a great mix of personal story and the uprising description. It has a good flow to it and is divided up into distinct sections. If you don't like a section - just skip it. I enjoyed reading all of it.

It starts out great, the chapter on "The Thrilla in Montana" was a joy to read. Then the book seems to slide, and about half way through I gave up. I just couldn't stay interested. The author, somewhere about halfway through the third chapter, loses sight of what the book title suggests the book is about. Maybe I am being dismissive, but with so many books on modern politics it takes a great book to get a good review from me. This isn't that book.

This book is pretty good in that it gives a third-party, yet sympathetic look into Hizballah. The author's bias toward them permits her access, which leads to a very interesting read. The problem is that her bias also opens up the door to misinformation. I recommend this book, but I also recommend "The Voice of Hizballah" (English translations of Sayyad Hassan Nasrallah's interviews and speeches - an unvarnished view at his thoughts and motivations) and maybe an anti-Hizballah book sprinkled in.

In the book, the author argues that Hizballah has basically removed itself from the business of terrorism since the early 1980s. She claims the Party of God has transitioned to a political party and social service provider for disaffected Lebanese Shia. The book provides incredible detail about Hizballah's social service programs (a hospital here, a water-purification facility there, schools, etc - how many people the services are helping, where the money is coming from, etc).

Bottom line: This is a good source, but it shouldn't be your only source.

Hezbollah: The Changing Face of Terrorism provides detailed history of Hizbu'llah, especially insightful, when it comes to the Lebanese context and politics. It does not aim to cover all features of this organization, but rather focus on the transformation, in the opinon of author, from fundamentalist group to resistence and moderate potical actor.

+ an unorthodox point of view on Hizbu'llah, author tries to proove that it is not in fact a terrorist group. Debatable, but very interesting.

+ greatly covers the Syrian influnce on Hizbu'llah and the double track Syrian policy towards Lebanese government and the Party of God.

+ presents pluralistic political system of Lebanon and puts Hizbu'llah in it's framework.

- biased, favouring Party of God.

- does not cover changing relationship between Tehran and Hizbu'llah

- slightly outdated, Hariri's assassination, Syrian withdrawal, July war or recent skirmish between Hizbu'llah and government are not included. These events shed diffrent light on Hizbu'llah than Palmer-Harik presented.

Summed up, great book that presents new insights, facts and ideas about Hizbu'llah. When read the shortcoming should be kept in mind to prevent biased and uncomplete image of Hizbu'llah. Still a must for anynone interested in Party of God.

Petr Zelinka,
Journal of Security Issues

Dr. Harik provides an in depth analysis of the struggle between Hezbollah and the Israelis as well as the roles of the U.S., Syria and Iran. I learned more in the first few pages than in hours of mainstream media. HIGHLY recommend it!

Harik is an American Political Science professor at the American University of Beirut and as such has had an upclose and personal perspective on Hezbollah for some time now. But rather than using her relatively unique perspective as an American academic to provide a revealing look at Hezbollah, Harik has written a fairly straightforward history of the group that does not go into enough detail and is hampered by her obvious sympathy for the group.

The basic thesis of the book is that Hezbollah has transformed itself from what some would call a terrorist organization in the early 80s, to a legitimate Lebanese political party that is capable of compromise. She takes the reader through Hezbollah's early days and describes the domestic political context that led to the group's rise. She also places a fair amount of weight on the regional context and goes into great detail to explain to her audience how Hezbollah is affected by Israel, Syria, Iran, and the U.S. This is the book's greatest strength since these outside actors have a huge impact on Hezbollah and no book that ignores the regional context would be complete.

However, Harik presents Hezbollah as if it were a homogenous actor that has no internal struggles. The only key figures of Hezbollah that Harik takes the time to descirbe are Hassan Nasrallah (some Americans will remember him from the war w/Israel in the summer of 06), and Mohammed Fadlallah. This is problematic because no political organization is without internal divisions or debates, but Harik never really acknowledges this. Presumably, she would have access to many members of Hezbollah and would be able to present a much more detailed look at the internal dynamics of the group, but unfortunately she never does. It seems odd that she would spend so much time describing the history of the group (which was already well-known) and not take the time to tell her audience how the group really functions.

The other main problem with the book is that Harik is plainly a "fan" of Hezbollah and it is hard to tell at times whether or not she is leaving out a wealth of information that does not affirm her perception of the group. This becomes clear when she describes actions by the U.S. or Israel as always being negative in nature, when they're really just acting out of their own perceived interests in the same way that Hezbollah does. You don't have to agree with or like what the U.S. does or with what Hezbollah does, but when you clearly pick a side and cannot be critical of your side, the argument ceases to be a serious academic study.

Anyone wanting to learn more about Hezbollah should read this book. For the most part it is well-written and easy to follow. At the same time, the reader should be aware that Harik is presenting a very one-sided look at her subject and that additional research will certainly be necessary after reading her book.

With 'Hezbollah: The Changing Face of Terrorism' Judith Palmer Harik has achieved a comprehensive and highly detailed history of the militant group. Her stated goal is to determine whether Hezbollah is a legitimate fighting force, as many in the Arab world believe, or simply a terrorist organization. While it is clear that the author leans toward the former, she does, to her credit, give an ample amount of attention to the view held by Israelis and Americans. So while her conclusions are certainly debatable, she essentially sticks to the facts. She thoroughly discusses Hezbollah's origins as a direct offshoot of the Iranian Revolution, for the purpose of combatting Israel. She discusses at length, their political objectives, their religious beliefs, and their transformation from radical militia, to mainstream political party. She also effectively puts the movement into the context of the general Mid-East conflict. My only criticism of the book, aside from the author's bias, is that it is severely academic in tone. The average lay reader might find it a bit too tedious. That being said, I would still recommend 'Hezbollah: The Changing Face of Terrorism' as a solid introduction to the the subject.

Tell everyone you know to read this book! What a great way to promote peace, and offer a very interesting read. I highly recommend this book to anyone concerned about where our world is headed right now.

I'm about 75 pages into this book so far, and I love it. It offers up a lot of food for thought, including ideas for moving from a "dominator" model in our society to a more democratic "partnership" model, how to educate your children in peacebuilding, and so on.

We live in dark and violent times. That is why a book like "Stop the Next War Now," edited by CodePink founders Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans, is such an important tool in promoting peace, hope and the belief that a small group of individuals really can change the world...for the better.

This amazing and empowering book is a collection of essays by some of the leading female experts, scholars, artists, activists and journalists in the world, all coming together to talk about their vision for a world without war. But the essays are more than just wishful thinking, they are powerful and passionate pleas for peace and motivating and energetic calls to action that provide the reader with real and effective ways to make a difference.

Featured in "Stop the Next War Now" are such luminaries as Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Nobel Prize winner Jody Williams, author Naomi Klein, Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto, Journalist Helen Thomas, activists such as Julia Butterfly Hill, Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman, Doris "Granny D" Haddock, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, and dozens more. The voices and visions of these great leaders speak of the terrors and horrors of war, the silent victims of violence, the tragedy of global poverty, the demand for corporate responsibility, the dangers of false democracy, the power of dissent, the need for non-violent solutions, the healing forces of hope and so many other topics, all from the viewpoint of women who have seen the sides of war and violence that the media rarely chooses to show us.

Editors Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans formed CodePink: Women For Peace (www.codepinkalert.org), an organization devoted to global peace issues, as a way for others like them - women who care about the world - to come together and protest, organize, educate and change. Since its inception in 2002, the organization has grown tremendously and is often mentioned in the news, challenging the rush to war and injustices of our own government, as well as those of other nations.

Mothers, artists, working women, political officials, activists... all women from all walks of life converge their resources, knowledge and passion in this amazing book that will no doubt serve as inspiration to generations currently working for peace, and generations to come, whose very survival depends on "stopping the next war now."

This is a moving and challenging book, a call to action, a tool for change and so much more. The stories and ideas of the authors who contributed to "Stop the Next War Now" have the ability to really make a difference...but only if enough readers choose to pick up this book, pay attention, and learn. Buy this book. Read it, then pass it on to a friend. If enough people learn that there are effective responses and alternatives to war and violence, who knows just how bright our future could be?

REV. MARIE JONES, author of LOOKING FOR GOD IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES

Susie Stalin aka Medea (child killer) Benjamin is a really disturbed maniac and should be ashamed of herself. This woman is devoid of any intellectual honesty. A puppet of the Left she disgraces peace. As anyone know there is no peace without justice. Apparently Ms Benjamin would rather live enslaved in a Communist state than as a free individual.

The best I can say about this book is it's comic in its infantile brashness.

What a bunch of liberal fanaticism. What a
shame so many trees had to die to print this trash.

I am fairly new to the idea of anarchism and I thought Colin Ward's book was well written and gave a brief, but decent, look at the ideas that make up anarchism, and some of its major writers, such as Michael Bakunin and Emma Goldman. I thought the parts of the book that gave several examples in which anarchists were very influential in different events in history was very interesting.

Ward briefly discuses the various branches of anarchist thought, like Anarcho-syndicalism and Pacifist anarchism, but only gives lip service to these. Ward's main focus seems to be the communistic-like version of anarchism.

I thought the book was very well written and contained a good amount of information for such a short book. I think it's a good starting place for anyone wanting to learn about this political philosophy, but I'd recommend looking to other sources for more in depth information; especially on the other forms of anarchism.

Ward quotes Martin Buber: "All forms of government has this in common: each possesses more power than is required by the given conditions." Buber calls this this "political surplus". One only has to look around the world to see how such political surplus is spent.

I was surprised at the extent of anarchist influence. Ward devotes 4 pages to how anarchism functioned practically is Spain in the 1930's, where 3 million people were organized in anarchist communes.

Anarchists have been at the forefront of considering ecological sustainability. Ward cites authors who believe that anarchism is the only approach that can meet the ecological challenges we face.

Given the problems socialism has faced, Ward argues it is too soon to write off anarchism when looking for alternatives to present forms of government. We may have been taught little about anarchism except to be dismissive of it, but Ward's book is an excellent start to understanding what anarchism offers. There are many references to the works of anarchists.

If capitalism seems to work, albeit at a considerable ecological cost, the growing ecological crises may force us within our lifetimes to explore alternative ways of living. Socialism may not be a big enough change, retaining as it does a strong central government with its own political surplus. If you think you can manage more political participation that casting a vote every few years, anarchism may be worth studying.

Initially, I became interested in reading Colin Ward's book because instances in which I encountered the phrases 'capito-anarchist', and 'minarchist' were growing increasingly frequent. In each of these instances, authors - generally scholarly or pseudo-scholarly authors - were referencing the work of the late Robert Nozick, and others without seeming to appreciate the gravity of the term 'anarchism' as an idea. I should note at the outset that I'm not exceedingly fond of Nozick's "Anarchy, State and Utopia".

Ward does a moderate job of outlining anarchy, and many of the major thinkers that evaluated, promoted, and propagated the idea of anarchy as a challenge to liberalism, to communism, to Tsarism, and to statist socialism. He provides brief reviews of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, William Godwin, Michael Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, and in a moment of genuine humor, Ward reveals his thoughts about Max Stirner's "The Ego and Its Own." Ward, quoting Kropotkin, explains that anarchism is "the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government - harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements, concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilised being." If one were hoping for a definition of anarchism - that's essentially it. And, if one were wondering about the central issues in anarchism, they are threefold: (1) property; Ward quotes David DeLeon as writing that, "While the liberatarians of the Right despise the state because it hinders the freedom of property; Left libertarians condemn the state because it is a bastion of property"; (2) liberty as a value either instrumentally or intrinsically conceived; and, (3) equality as isonomia, or equality of outcome. The problem with the first point is that most libertarians do not want anarchy because they recognize that without the state (or some type of mutual protection society) there cannot exist freedom of (or a right to private) property because there is nothing to defend, uphold, or in cases of dispute, resolve that freedom or right. There are problems with liberty and equality in the sense that they are not seen as conflicting values, but confusingly, as means and ends to one another. In this regard, Ward's book is more of a history affectionately told, than a philosophical examination.

What Ward has written is something akin to a biography of an idea, and like many less than stellar biographers Ward is in love with his subject. My own prediction is that this work will not, as it were, mature on the shelf: Ward conspires to make his subject relevant by incorporating chic radicalism, and celebrity causes such as ecological/environmental rights groups, anti-globalization protests, anti-Americanism/anti-capitalism, and the libertarian movement into the anarchist tradition. It's the same recklessness with political rhetoric and ideology that has made all political conversations potential minefields: what is presently called liberalism bears few resemblances to J.S. Mill's liberalism (think Joseph Raz or Peter Singer), and contemporary conservatism looks nothing like what Burke, or Hume, or Hayek, or Oakeshott had elucidated. The final shortcoming of Ward's book is that it fails to seriously examine the crux of the problem with anarchism: that freedom and equality are two competing values in any social system, and that to have pure liberty would advance only the strongest, and thus equality comes at the cost of liberty vis-�-vis some type of authority. This authority cannot spontaneously appear out of the ether, but the bulk of the anarchists seem to believe that the good-will and underlying commonalities of all human beings will suffice in place of state authority (and that it will not later develop into the state they've rejected similar to what occurs part way through Orwell's "Animal Farm"). Ward tries to dismiss this by stating that anarchists are too often caricatured, but this is the reason why - they have failed to coherently address this problem, and so too has Ward. The first deficiency, then, is an inability to be objective; the second, an inability to properly delineate and denominate; the third, an unwillingness to explore the central value conflicts in anarchism.

What the general reader would very much appreciate is a sort of brief, unbiased, and unpretentious anarchism reader; what is unfortunate is that Ward's book is not it. There are collections of anarchist's texts if you're interested, such as Daniel Gu�rin's "No Gods, No Masters" in two volumes, but one shouldn't suppose that it appeals to objectivity as it's published by AK Press in Edinburgh (whose self-described goal is to "make available radical books and other materials"). However, also worth reading are George Woodcock's "Anarchism and Anarchists: Essays," (1992) and James Joll's "The Anarchists" (1979). Among primary texts are Michael Bakunin's "Statism and Anarchy," William Godwin's "The Anarchist Writings", Peter Kropotkin, "The Conquest of Bread and Other Writings", Serge� Nechayev "The Catcheism of the Revolutionist", Proudhon's "What is Property?", and if you're feeling very brave, Max Stirner's "The Ego and Its Own." The texts of Bakunin, Kropotkin, Proudhon, and Stirner have been included in the Cambidge University Press editions, "Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought," and all have excellent introductions, and fine translations.

Colin Ward was probably not the ideal person to write this little book on anarchism--not, as another reviewer has said (in what's a very good review, by the way) because he's an anarchist and hence isn't objective so much as because the book reeks of a very specific kind of anarchism: British, urban, secular, and communistic. The first bias makes a good deal of the discussion either arcane or dull for the nonBritish reader; the second virtually ignores intentional community experiments away from city areas; the third incredibly ignores Christian anarchists such as Jacques Ellul or Dorothy Day; and the fourth (although a position I personally endorse) gives shortshrift to libertarianism. To give him his due, Ward does discuss the latter more than he does nonurban or religious anarchism. But his understanding of libertarianism is sketchy. This only makes sense, since it's largely an American phenomenon, and Ward is sketchy on American. (On page 63, he and his editor even misspell "Cincinatti". I mean, really!)

Ward is strongest in discussing three 19th century Euopean giants of anarchism: Proudhon, Bakunin, and Kropotkin. Moreover, his chapter on education's discussion of William Godwin is both interesting and worthy. But on the other hand, much of the rest of the book falls flat. The most potentially interesting and important chapter in the book, on federalism, just doesn't deliver. Ward fails to follow up, in even an introductory way, on the anarchist claim that regionalism/federalism makes more sense than statism. Instead, he just quotes a couple of stirring but inadequate passages from an 1867 Bakunin pamphlet, doing little to refute the standard criticism that anarchist modes of organization are inadequate with large populations.

The problem is that there are few books out there that can give the beginner a good idea of what anarchism is all about. But almost all of them are better than this. So skip Ward and instead try George Woodcock's classic Anarchism, or Peter Marshall's later (but already hard to find) Demanding the Impossible. To be fair to Ward, however, his Anarchy in Action is well worth reading, and highly recommended.

A Very Short Introduction on anarchism by Colin Ward is just what it says. A short history with just enough details to allow the reader to understand the many types of anarchism that are out there. A list of books for further reading and the references allow you to easily expand your knowledge on whatever type of anarchism that you wish to know about. From their ideas about education to the environment, anarchists are everywhere.