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Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism
by Michael Schmidt and Lucien van der Walt
The first in a two-volume mega-work called Counterpower, this brand new book from AK Press is a sprawling rexamination of the historical anarchist tradition. Unlike many approaches to the subject, Black Flame takes the stance that treating "anarchism" as a loose collection of tangentially related doctrines (including everything from Tolstoy's misanthropic Christianity to ultra-libertarian capitalism) is fundamentally a mistake. Instead, the authors propose a (re)definition of "anarchism" which treats it as a coherent social movement which can be traced historically, with its roots and relevance in its class politics - an anarchism against both state and capital and seeking to organize resistance and alternatives. Although this might not sit well with a lot of contemporary people identifying as anarchists (like for instance those who think anarchism can be somehow "post-left"), the trade-off is well worth it, since the authors (themselves associated with South Africa's Zabalaza) are able to use their conceptual rubric to demonstrate conclusively the coherent international character of the Anarchist movement, a welcome antidote to Eurocentric accounts of the movement and its history.
We can't wait for volume 2!
