Pays tribute to an
anarchist tradition that continued in Weil, Camus and
Sartre.
Jean
Grave (1854-1939) was a leading French anarchist
whose theoretical works and activity place him
alongside such luminaries as William Godwin,
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Michael Bakunin, and Peter
Kropotkin. Drawing on various archival and library
sources, Louis Patsouras traces the controversies and
convictions that shaped the life and career of this
extraordinary radical thinker, set within the
fascinating socioeconomic context of Grave's time.
One
of the few leading socialists to come from a
working-class background, Grave, who inherited his
spirit of revolt from his politicized father, was
profoundly influenced by witnessing the unsuccessful
fight of the 1871 Paris Commune and developed into an
exceptional journalist. As editor of two newspapers, Le
Révolté and Les
Temps Nouveaux, Grave was able
to pioneer the fusion of revolutionary politics and
art, to enlist leading members of the art world to
propagate socialism through their work, to
effectively combine the cultural struggle with the
social one, and to advocate his own anarchist ideal:
a democratic society of self-managed worker
collectives. This work covers many of the doctrinal
controversies that characterized the various
anarchist factions of Grave's day--specifically, the
similarities and differences between Marxism and
anarcho-communism--but it also extends into the
broader realms of proletarian revolution, class
struggle, and the vison of a new society.
The
advent of World War I and the and the subsequent rise
of communism in Russia led to the collapse of the
anarchist movement in France; nevertheless, Patsouras
here pays just tribute to one of the mainstays of a
tradition that continued in Simone Weil, Albert
Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, and the 1968 French Revolt.
A
classic piece of historical writing, easy to read and
excellently researched.
--William Fishman, University
of London, UK
A
conscientious study of the history of French
anarchism in general, and of Jean Grave, in
particular.
--Dr. Jean Maitron, Le Mouvement
Social
Table of Contents
Louis
Patsouras is Professor of History at Kent State
University. His other published works include Simone
Weil and the Socialist Tradition,
The Crucible of Socialism,
and Debating Marx,
Essays On Socialism,
and Continuity and Change in
Marxism.
204
pages
Paperback ISBN: 1-55164-184-4 $24.99
Hardcover ISBN: 1-55164-185-2 $53.99
History / Philosophy / Biography
October
2002
