Italian movement's influence on the Angry Brigade

thanks for all the help everyone, this is of great help.

Fingers - that book by Lumley is states of emergency:Cultures of Revolt in Italy from 1968 to 1978. I wrote an essay on Italy in 1968 and that was a useful book. Thanks for the list of books and your messages, ill reply properly soon when i get time, im rushing at the mo. I live in London so i can pop down to LSE anytime, although the inability to read the language of those Italian sources is of hindrance

Thanks for the offer steven, although itll be a while - around april 2010 to be precise. Here is some of my draft Autumn Report (a preperation thing we have to do for the dissertation) as a taster (please feel free to point out any thing wrong, right, or worth adding to- ive got to hand this in by noon on friday 25th):

"Far more than any current secondary sources and historiography on the Angry Brigade, the dissertation aims to explore the theoretical beliefs of the known members and the organisations they took part in prior to their bombing campaign. This will also include exploring the nature of other revolutionary organisations and movements that had an influence on them, such as the First of May Group. Importantly, the influence of the radical left-wing movement in 1960s Italy will be examined, as no secondary sources on the Angry Brigade have thus far highlighted this connection. Only in the recent 1990’s did ex-Angry Brigade member John Barker explain that the influence of the “Italian movement from Potere Operaio onwards...was...important to [the Angry Brigade]”. Much less attention shall be paid to the police investigation in to the Angry Brigade or the subsequent legal trial, for such information would contribute little to the aims of the dissertation.

To achieve these aims, the dissertation will be divided in to four sections:

1. Establishing the international context of the 1960s, and those groups and events foreign to Britain that influenced known members of the Angry Brigade. This includes primarily the Italian movement in the 1960s and the early 1970s, and the Situationists and the events of Paris 1968. There are few primary sources translated from Italian on the Italian movement, but more secondary sources. The Situationists’ texts are all translated from French and are easily accessible. The texts of the Situationists are important, for they contributed to the Angry Brigade’s perception of society, with one member even attempting to translate a key Situationist text. The ideas of the Situationists can also be seen to have had an important influence on the style and tone of the Angry Brigade’s communiqués to the outside world.

2. Examining the British influences upon the known members of the Angry Brigade, including the Solidarity group, and the various activities the members were involved in before they began their bombing campaign, including the demonstration at Grosvenor Square in October 1968 and the Claimants Union. The Solidarity Group was a London based group of socialists that expounded ‘libertarian-left’ ideas. A collection of texts by the most prominent member Christopher Pallis is available, and many pamphlets published by the group are still available. There are several secondary texts detailing the activism of Britain in the 1960s which are easy to procure.

3. Examining the communiqués sent by the Angry Brigade, which highlighted their targets and the reasons that were given for bombing them. The communiqués have all been collected in to a small book which is easily accessible.

4. The alternative and Anarchist press’ opinion of the Angry Brigade. Several collections are well archived and are relatively easily accessible, such as International Times, Freedom, and OZ. Anarchist pamphlets from the period are less well documented. However, local social centres such as the London Action Resource Centre and the 56aInfoshop provide a unique archive of anarchist material. Nostalgia and non-critical bias is less of a problem, for many anarchist organisations condemned the actions of the Angry Brigade.

In addition to this, the biography of Stuart Christie is highly useful and shall be referenced throughout the dissertation, for he had a degree of interaction with AB members and was accused of being a member himself, and also sets the context of the era as perceived by a dedicated anarchist. The problems with such a source however are ones of reliability and accuracy. Libcom.org is another highly useful archive of online secondary and primary libertarian left wing sources. There were also a few pamphlets and newsheets that were produced by the Stoke Newington Eight Defence Group. These are important, because they contribute to our understanding of the politics of the Angry Brigade and the context of the time. Selections of their material are archived at the London School of Economics"

There are footnotes to some of this but they wernt copied over and i cant be bothered to type them at the mo. There is also a list of primary sources i am going to use, and an even longer list of secondary sources, but i wont clog up this page with them unless someone requests i do so.

O and does anyone know how to get hold of Black Flag? I emailed them but no response. I wanted to get hold of their archives as well.

Thanks again for all the help!

Could anyone help me get in contact with Black Flag? I read somewhere that they were one of the few anarchist publications that supported the Angry Brigade. I emailed them a while back, but have had no response. I need access to their archives so i can see what they wrote about the AB. Cheers.