Does what it says on the tin.
Over the last week I have been tidying cluttered and dusty bookshelves. Feeling self-indulgent I decided to put together a pile of the books that have had the biggest impact and influence on my political journey and where I currently find myself. The list is markedly different then it would have been five years ago as I have slowly developed an ‘infantile disorder’.
I would be interested to see what other people would have in their list.
They are in ranking order, linked to purchase info and a link to an online version if available
10. Anarchism and other essays
Emma Goldman
Buy
Online
9. Dare to be a Daniel
Wilf McCartney
Buy
Online
8. 43 Group
Morris Beckman
Buy
7. Poll Tax Rebellion
Danny Burns
Buy
6. Beating the Fascists
Sean Birchall
Buy
5. Unfinished Business
Class War
Buy
4. Teamster Rebellion
Farrell Dobbs
Buy
3. Workers Councils
Anton Pannekoek
Buy
Online
Comments
The Russian Tragedy -
The Russian Tragedy - Alexander Berkman
Living my Life - Emma Goldman
Anarchism, arguments for and against - Albert Meltzer
Land and Liberty - Ricardo Flores Magon
A series of shock slogans and mindless token tantrums - Exitstencil Press
Homage to Catalonia - George Orwell
Andrew Ingham - The Self-help House Repairs Manual
William Blake - Songs of Innocence and Experience
Durruti - The People Armed
Arthur Miller - The Crucible
Honorable mention to,
Seamus Heaney - The Government of the Tongue
Interesting This just missed
Interesting
This just missed out on my list
Anarchism, arguments for and against - Albert Meltzer
The people armed - need to
The people armed - need to read that but cant seem to find a copy
What is to be done by
What is to be done by Vladimir Lenin
Power and Market by Murray Rothbard
Planned Chaos by Ludwig von Mises
Capitalism: the unknown ideal by Ayn Rand
America's Second Crusade by William Henry Chamberlin
Mao's Little Red Book
Classical Liberalism and the Austrian School by Ralph Raico
Temporary Autonomous Zone by Hakim Bey
Leftism: From de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Marcuse
by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
Introduction to being a DGR Field General by Lierre Kieth and Chairman Bob Avaikian
edit: double post
edit: double post
Ooo, this is fun. Errr... The
Ooo, this is fun. Errr...
The good soldier Schweik - Jaroslav Hasek
Reading Capital politically - Harry Cleaver
Discipline and punish - Michel Foucault
States of injury - Wendy Brown
Genealogy of morals - Freidrich Nietzsche
Syndicalism - Tom Brown
I couldn't paint golden angels - Albert Meltzer
Spike Milligan's war memoirs (if I can have that as one book)
Communist manifesto - Marx & Engels
The enemy within - Seumas Milne
... in no particular order.
When I was an impressionable
When I was an impressionable 16 year old, I read Alan Sillitoe's novella, The Loneliness of the Longdistance Runner. It made so many things clear to me, stirring up all my righteous anger and leading me to become increasingly politcised. Everything I've read since has just been a process of political refinement following Sillitoe's initial kick up the arse.
Talking and working with
Talking and working with people has probably influenced my politics more than any books I’ve read.
I think it is in ‘The Anxiety Makers’, where Alex Comfort writes there are whole libraries with books full of untruths. So my ten books in no particular order:
Robert Tressell - The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
Walter Greenwood - Love On The Dole
William Morris – News From Nowhere
George Orwell – Homage To Catalonia
George Orwell - Down And Out In Paris And London
Alexander Berkman – Prison Memoirs Of An Anarchist
Bakunin – God And The State (intro by Paul Avrich)
Sam Dolgoff – The Anarchist Collectives
Marie Louise Berneri – Journey Through Utopia
Voline – The Unknown Revolution 1917-1921
Karl Marx- Communist
Karl Marx- Communist Manifesto
The Jungle- Upton Sinclair
Nickle and Dimed- Barbara Ehrenreich
Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism- Peter Marshall
Uses of a Whirlwind
The Coming Insurrection
There is Power in a Union- Philip Dray
The Wretched of the Earth- Frantz Fanon
Ours to Master and to Own: Workers' Control from the Commune to the Present
Homage to Catalonia
difficult question ... a
difficult question ... a provisional (not official) list
- Christa Wolf: Kassandra
- Ernst Toller: Eine Jugend in Deutschland (I was a German)
- Wolfgang Leonhard: Die Revolution entlässt ihre Kinder (Child of the revolution)
- Primo Levi: Ist das ein Mensch (If This Is a Man)
- Karl Korsch: Marxismus und Philosophie
- Kollektiv Hispano-Suiza: Arbeiter und Apparate - Bericht französischer Arbeiter über ihre Praxis 1945-70 (Ouvriers face aux appareils: Une Experience de militantisme chez Hispano- Suiza)
- Karl Retzlaw: Spartakus – Aufstieg und Niedergang. Erinnerungen eines Parteiarbeiters
- Karl Marx/Friedrich Engels: Deutsche Ideologie (German Ideology)
- Franz Jakubowski: Der ideologische Überbau in der materialistischen Geschichtsauffassung (Ideology and Superstructure in Historical Materialism)
- Heinrich Heine: Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen. (Germany, a winter's tale)
and stuff by Brandt (Heinz and Willy), Mandel, Marcuse, Bloch, Kafka, Loewy, Trotzki, Bourdieu, Freud, Fromm, Hobsbawm, Heym (Stefan and Georg), Landauer, Mühsam, Kropotkin, Lenin, Bookchin, Lasker-Schüler, Zimmer-Bradley, Feuerbach, Freud, Zhuangzi, Laozi, Kemal (Yasar, not Mustafa), Garcia Marquez, Ana Guadelupe Martinez, Goethe, Celan, Li Bai, Kollontai, Tronti, Ausländer, Schwitters, Roth, Hobsbawm, Thompson, Gramsci, Orwell, Luxemburg, Tolkien, Brothers Grimm, etc.
Nice thread. Few listed here
Nice thread. Few listed here that I haven't got my hands on yet, will be checking them out when I have the chance.
As for mine:
E. Zola - Germinal
U. K. Le Guin - The Dispossessed
P. Kropotkin - Mutual Aid
W. Morris - News from Nowhere
M. Bakunin - God and the State
P. Kropotkin - Conquest of Bread
P. Marshall - Demanding the Impossible
R. Rocker - Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism
E. Goldman - Living My Life/ Anarchism and Other Essays
M. Bookchin - SALA
And of course loads from the 'other' side helped define my politics. Reading Friedman, Rand or Plato certainly pushed me to the left just as much as the above pulled me that way.
Serge Forward wrote: When I
Serge Forward
Definitely with ya on Sillitoe, he has more than enough anger to share, especially for his age when he wrote that book. Powerful grim oop north stuff.
Strumpet City by James Plunkett
Swing Hammer Swing by James Torrington
Factotum by Charles Bukowski
Sabotage in the American Workplace
Fire on the Mountain by Terry Bisson
Rivethead by Ben Hamper
Good Morning Midnight by Jean Rhys
Straight Time by Edward NBunker
Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut
Anarchy by Errico Malatesta
The film's not bad an all.
The film's not bad an all.
Sam Dolgoff-Bakunin on
Sam Dolgoff-Bakunin on Anarchism
Piotr Arshinov-History of the Mahknovist Movement
Abel Paz-Durruti-The People Armed
Emma Goldman-Living My Life
Rudolf Rocker-Nationalism and Culture
Murray Bookchin-The Spanish Anarchists
Noam Chomsky-American Power and the New Mandarins
Daniel Guerin-No Gods,No Masters
Naomi Klein-The Shock Doctrine
David Beresford-Ten Men Dead
Thinking about this, I
Thinking about this, I realize that I don't really read full books anymore, but instead dip into them and read parts of sections and then dip out and go on to the next one.
1. In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck
2. The Autobiography of Malcolm X
3. The Jungle (comic) by Upton Sinclair/Adapted by Peter Kuper
4. Rebellion From the Roots: Indian Uprising in Chaipas by John Ross
5. The Black Panthers Speak edited by Philip Foner
6. Wobblies!: A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World
7. We Took the Streets: Fighting for Latino Rights with the Young Lords
8. Anarchist Portraits by Paul Avrich
9. The Spanish Anarchists: The Heroic Years 1868-1936 by Murray Bookchin
10. Die Nigger Die! by H. Rap Brown
George Orwell - Homage to
George Orwell - Homage to Catalonia
Rudolf Rocker - Anarchism and Anarcho-syndicalism
Sean Birchall - Beating the fascists
Alexander Berkman - ABC of Anarchism
Charles Bukowski - Post Office
Delo Truda - The Organisational Platform for Libertarian Communists
Lucien van der Walt and Michael Schmidt - Black Flame
Stuart Christie - Granny made me an Anarchist
Dave Douglass - Geordies wa Mental
Naomi Klein - The Shock Doctrine
I suppose I like people's personal accounts of their lives and politics more than anything else usually. It's just easier to relate to for me.
Redwinged Blackbird
Redwinged Blackbird
you should add:
Giulio Evola: Revolt Against the Modern World: Politics, Religion, and Social Order in the Kali Yuga
Otto Weininger: Sex and Character: An Investigation Of Fundamental Principles
Juan Posadas: The Relationship of Humanity towards the animals, the universe and socialism
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: La Pornocratie ou Les Femmes dans les temps modernes
Khieu Samphan: Cambodia's Economy and Industrial Development
Silvio Gesell: The Natural Economic Order
Erich Honecker: Aus meinem Leben
August Winnig: Vom Proletariat zum Arbeitertum
Joseph Stalin: Marxism and Problems of Linguistics
Oswald Spengler: Prussianism and Socialism
the button wrote: The enemy
the button
Class book which shows the lengths the state will go to in order to fuck up any threat to the status quo.
Good idea for a thread. In no
Good idea for a thread. In no particular order...
Homage to Catalonia - George Orwell
Reading Capital Politically - Harry Cleaver
Eclipse and Re-emergence of the Communist Movement - Gilles Dauvé
Delusions of Gender - Cordelia Fine
The 21st Century Brain - Steven Rose
Discipline and Punish - Michel Foucault
Genealogy of Morals - Friedrich Nietzsche
Capital Vol. 1 - Karl Marx
The Ecology of Freedom - Murray Bookchin
Society of the Spectacle - Guy Debord
Honourable mentions for Durruti in the Spanish Revolution by Abel Paz and Anarcho-syndicalism in the 20th Century by Vadim Damier, but these didn't influence me as much as the above, which all changed the way I thought about one thing or another at some point. In honesty there should probably be some Chomsky in there, but I can't remember what book(s) I actually read by him. I've read some really good stuff in the last year or so too, but no telling how influential it's been yet.
gypsy wrote: the button
gypsy
Have you read David Peace's novel, "GB84"? Fucking amazing semi-fictional account of the same thing. Would have been on the list, but it didn't really 'shape' my politics, just confirmed how right I am. :D
Entdinglichung
Entdinglichung
Continuing on:
Crimthinc: Recipes for Disaster: An Anarchist Cookbook
United States Army Field Manuals (FM 1 thru FM 34-52)
Abbie Hoffman: Steal This Book
U.S. CIA: The Freedom Fighter's Manual
Che Guevara: Guerrilla Warfare
Sun Tzu: The Art of War
Kim Il-sung: Complete Collection of Kim Il Sung's Works
J. Stalin: Defects in Party Work and Measures for Liquidating Trotskyite and Other Double Dealers
Redwinged Blackbird
Redwinged Blackbird
a blast from my past :oops:
sabot wrote: Entdinglichung
sabot
Timothy Leary: The Politics of Ecstasy
Carl Schmitt: The Concept of the Political
Leo Trotzki: Terrorism and Communism
Manon Andreas-Grisebach: Philosophie der Grünen
Henri Barbusse: Stalin: A New World Seen Through the Man
Carlos Castaneda: The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge
Aleister Crowley: Book of the Law
Corinna Lotz/Paul Feldman: Gerry Healy: A Revolutionary Life
Michail Bakunin: Polemique contre les Juifs
Charles Fourier: Theory of the four movements and the general destinies
Q
Q >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7i01GPs-hQ
the button wrote: gypsy
the button
No mate. Will seek it out.
(No subject)
Communist Manifesto -
Communist Manifesto - Marx
1844 Manuscripts - Marx
Capital Vol. 1 - Marx
Society of the Spectacle - Debord
Revolution of Everyday Life - Vaneigem
Empire - Hardt & Negri
Change the World Without Taking Power - Holloway
Crack Capitalism - Holloway
Coming Insurrection - Invisible Committee
In a roughly chronological
In a roughly chronological order:
- Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: Manifesto of the Communist Party
- Karl Marx: Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts
- Kurt Vonnegut: Timequake (as well as many other books by KV)
- Roy Medvedev: Stalin and Stalinism
- V. I. Lenin: What Is To Be Done?
- Rosa Luxemburg: Organisational Questions of the Russian Social Democracy ("Leninism or Marxism?")
- Harry Cleaver: Reading Capital Politically (esp. the intro)
- Steve Wright: Storming Heaven
- Revolutionary Writing: Common Sense Essays in Post-Political Politics
- Open Marxism (any of the three volumes)
Oh shit I forgot Martin
Oh shit I forgot Martin Glaberman! Probably a lot more important than many of the others I listed.
"Das Kapital" - Marx "Society
"Das Kapital" - Marx
"Society Of the Spectacle" - Debord
"Eclipse and Re-Emergence of the Communist Movement" - Dauvé
"Jalones de derrota, promesa de victoria [espana 1930-39]" - Grandizo Munis
"Marx, theoretician of anarchism" - Maximilien Rubel
"Thèses sur la communautè terrible, Comment faire?" - Tiqqun
"Raw materials for a theory of the Young-Girl" - Tiqqun
"Le militantisme stade supreme de l'alienation" - OJTR
"Le roman de nos origines" - La Banquise n°2 (Dauvé)
"The Question of the State" - La Guerre Sociale
Peter Marshall - Demanding
Peter Marshall - Demanding the Impossible
George Orwell - Homage to Catalonia
Guy Debord - Society of the Spectacle (embarrassing... still, has some decent chapters)
Ken Knabb - Joy of Revolution
Pannekoek, Pankhurst, Ruhle, Gorter - Non-Leninist Marxism (collection of different polemics)
David Harvey - A Brief History of Neo-Liberalism
Marx - Capital vol. 1 (through the proxy of Harvey's video lectures. still haven't read the full book)
Group of International Communists - origins of the movement for
workers’ councils in germany (reprinted by the commune)
homage to catalonia seems to
homage to catalonia seems to be the #1 book here. will fetch and read.
one book that influenced me, a good while ago, was albion's seed: four british folkways in america, d. h. fischer, an anthropology of four different communities of settlers in north america 17th/18th centuries. they had important things in common (england, protestantism) but also had irreconcilably different attitudes in fundamental ways, and the book convinced me that this supposedly unitary thing "america" never existed, even among the people who are cited as founding "the american culture"; nor by extension did any other nation state ever represent any kind of unitary culture.
1 Free women of Spain -
1 Free women of Spain - Martha A. Ackelsberg
2 Story of the Iron Column: Militant Anarchism in the Spanish Civil War - Abel Paz
3 The Insurrectional Project - Alfredo M. Bonanno
4 Willful Disobedience (collected writings) - Wolfi Landstreicher
5 Caliban and the Witch: Women, The Body, and Primitive Accumulation - Silvia Frederici
6 Assata: An Autobiography - Assata Shakur
7 A Problem of Memory: Stories to End the Racial Nightmare - Taylor Sparrow
8 Anarchy Works - Peter Gelderloos
9 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance - Gord Hill
10 Autonomous Self-Organization and Anarchist Intervention: A Tension in Practice - Wolfi Landstreicher
Plenty of reading to consider
Plenty of reading to consider here...great idea for a thread. Looking through the lists I think my choices have already been mentioned, but here goes anyway:
(off the top of my head & in no particular order)
Robert Tressels - Ragged Trousered Philantropists
William Morris - More news from nowhere
Edward Bellamy - Looking Backward
Colin Ward - Anarchy in Action
John Quail - Slow Burning Fuse
Peter Kroptkin - Mutual Aid
Jack London - the iron heel
Alan Sillitoe - Saturday Night Sunday Morning
Autobiography of Malcolm X
Engels- condition of the working class in England
And not books but influential none the less:
Crass lyrics
& Socialist Standard the journal of the SPGB (wouldn't subscribe any more as I don't hold with the parliamentary path to revolution but still very influential in my formative years.
Of course, if you were to ask me tomorrow I might come up with a totally different list
Capital Vol 1 By Marx Debt:
Capital Vol 1 By Marx
Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
Chomsky on Anarchism by Noam Chomsky
Orientalism by Edward Said
Anarchosyndicalism by Rudolf Rocker
Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman
Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault
Existentialism and Human Emotion by Jean-Paul Sartre
Why I am not a Christian and other Essays by Bertrand Russell
Honorable mention: The Dictator's Handbook by Bruce Bueno De Mesquita and Alastair Smith
Why I am not a Christian and
Why I am not a Christian and other Essays by Bertrand Russell - Sounds interesting, will check it out