On Anarchist Reading Lists (some initial caveats)
Basically MOST Expected Reading In The Modern Movement
Post-left Anarchy & Insurrectionary Anarchy
Mutualism / Left-Market Classic
Primitivism And General Anticiv
Particularly Notable Non-Anarchist Leftist Influences & Occasional Travellers
Below is a broad reading list of important texts (mostly books, some articles).
Below is a quickly sketched map of texts with importance and influence in the anarchist movement. It is not a map of ideas, which are distinct from texts and flourish in anarchist spaces often with little or no reference to formal texts. Anarchists care far more about generalized ideas and arguments than Great Figures and genealogies. This is why we call ourselves Anarchists and not Proudhonists.
Reading a ton of books and even zines is no replacement for having personal discussions and arguments with actual living people in the movement. Ideally in large part in actual anarchist infoshops and activist projects, and away from online echo-chambers filled with people who have bootstrapped themselves with a lot of formal learning but little tacit knowledge or cultural continuity. Most great ideas in the anarchist movement rarely make it into a text, and when they do it’s usually a moldy zine. Keep that in mind.
Too often bibliographies of anarchism are wildly biased documents clearly pushing a specific party line or actively trying to re-write history by ignoring major texts and inflating minor ones. I have my own leanings, both ones with historical pedigrees and those operating as largely novel projects, but this is an attempt to map out anarchism warts-and-all, not anarchism as I might like it to eventually sort out. I believe in providing people with accurate maps to expand their agency, and perhaps that will better inform conversations. Especially as so many new people interested in anarchism today are so disconnected from the prior culture and movement.
One consequence of this approach is as I was compiling this my partner screamed “you can’t include ___! he’s a monster!” several times. I deeply despise a number of texts and writers included below (to say nothing of the ones I find tiresome or useless) and I can’t in good conscience allow some issues to go without note. It matters quite a lot that someone is a snitch, fascist, or apologist for child rape. Other political traditions from marxism to right-libertarianism have at least as many ugly spots in their broad history, but it’s imperative we be up-front about them.
This also involves a dance around whether people that explicitly rejected identification as anarchists should be included. I have included only two, Stirner and Bookchin, because they have vast longstanding and quite active influences well beyond all other non-anarchists. However I believe it is wildly dishonest and disrespectful to the dead to classify them as something they rejected. I have also provided some very limited addendum sections on particularly relevant modern marxist and ancap texts to avoid leaving people out to sea in terms of surrounding context.
The point of this map is to provide new anarchists with a quick way to understand “what matters” and “what you might be expected to know” in assimilating to the existing movement as well as having greater appreciation for its breadth and being able to navigate its complexities.
This is decidedly NOT a bibliography for answers to questions about “Is Anarchism Meant For You?” I would have made a completely different map for the uninitiated looking to grasp foundations or answer 101 concerns and questions. I might yet make that map, but it will be skewed to what I consider good arguments, not necessarily every argument ever made under the banner of “anarchism.”
Some token residue of modesty prevents me from including any of my own works, but you can easily enough find them elsewhere. I could write many thousands of words opinion and breaking down each of the below texts and in some cases have. The absence of commentary, I stress, is neither personal endorsement nor criticism, nor should it flatten the complex ways folks have critiqued and related to a given text.
There are many ‘missing sections’ (like short intros, black anarchism, interpersonal ethics, etc) where there aren’t classic books per se to be linked, but where much of what there is of importance/influence is already downloadable directly in the zine library above. Zines > books. I’m also sure I forgot stuff in the couple hours I’ve given to this. It’s on github so you can fork the repo and make your own with all the shit you hate me for not including.
(READ THESE ABSOLUTELY NO MATTER WHAT, THE REST IS JUST THEORY WANKERY)
Why Misogynists Make Great Informants — Courtney Desiree Morris
How Nonviolence Protects The State — CrimethInc.
Betrayal — Words to Fire Press
Come Hell Or High Water — Delfina Vannuci & Richard Singer
Against The Logic Of The Guillotine — CrimethInc
10 Points On The Black Bloc — Harsha Walia
Continuing Appeal Of Nationalism — Fredy Perlman
The Black Bloc Papers — The Green Mountain Anarchist Collective, Xavier Massot, David Van Deusen
Anarchy Works — Peter Gelderloos
From Democracy To Freedom — CrimethInc.
For now I’m skipping history books of anarchism, since that’s the vast majority of anarchist texts and everyone’s library. There are just too damn many good books to list and we’d be here all day. I always advise brand new people to read Goldman’s Living My Life since it’s super easy to read and captures how the radical scene in the 1890s is just like the radical punk scene today. Abel Paz’ Durruti is great fun on the spanish civil war. Robert Graham does the best historical compilations of writing. We’re blessed today with a ton of better books on histories of anarchists outside the west, but yeesh, would take forever. Until I have time to go through my bookcases and pick the best or most important history ones, see the histories section of the zines above.
Mutual Aid — Peter Kropotkin
Ethics: Origin and Development — Pëtr Kropotkin
Nationalism and Culture — Rudolf Rocker
Revolution and Other Writings — Gustav Landauer
God and the State — Michail Bakunin
The Possibility Of Cooperation — Michael Taylor
Utopia Of Rules — David Graeber
Debt — David Graeber
The Dawn of Everything — David Graeber and David Wengrow
Seeing Like A State — James C. Scott
Weapons Of The Weak — James C. Scott
Worshipping Power — Peter Gelderloos
In Defense of Anarchism — Robert Paul Wolff
The Politics Of Individualism: Liberalism, Liberal Feminism and Anarchism — L Susan Brown
People without Government: An Anthropology of Anarchy — Harold Barclay
Marx: A Radical Critique — Alan Carter
Anarchism: A Theoretical Analysis — Alan Ritter
Home Rule — Nandita Sharma
Armed Joy — Alfredo M. Bonanno
The Anarchist Tension — Alfredo M. Bonanno
Anarchy In The Age Of Dinosaurs — The Curious George Brigade
Days Of War Nights Of Love — CrimethInc.
Insurrectional Anarchism: A Reader — Various Authors
Killing King Abacus (zine/mag)
The Master’s Tools — Tom Nomad
The Abolition of Work — Bob Black (racist snitch)
TAZ — Hakim Bey (written by a child rape apologist)
Insurgencies (mag)
Murder Of Crows (mag)
What Is Anarcho-communism — Alexander Berkman
At The Cafe — Errico Malatesta
Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism — Rudolf Rocker
Anarcho-syndicalism: Theory and Practice — Tom Wetzel
Fighting for ourselves: Anarcho-syndicalism and the class struggle — Solidarity Federation
An Anarchist FAQ — The Anarchist FAQ Editorial Collective
Organisational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists — Dielo Truda (Workers’ Cause)
Manifesto of Libertarian Communism — Federation Communiste Libertaire
About the Platform — Barikád Kollektíva
Towards a Fresh Revolution — Friends of Durruti
Black Flame (COWRITTEN BY A FASCIST)
Black Anarchism: A Reader — Jon Bekken
The Strategy of Especifismo — Juan Carlos Mechoso (Uruguayan Anarchist Federation–FAU)
The Global Influence of Platformism Today — Northeastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists
Proudhon Reader — Iain McKay (ed.)
Instead Of A Book — Benjamin R. Tucker
No Treason — Lysander Spooner
The Voltairine de Cleyre Reader
What Is Mutualism — Clarence Lee Swartz, in collaboration with The Mutualist Associates
The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand — Kevin Carson
Studies In Mutualist Political Economy — Kevin Carson
Organization Theory — Kevin Carson
Markets Not Capitalism [compilation] — Various Authors
Homebrew Industrial Revolution — Kevin Carson
Exodus — Kevin Carson
What I Believe — Leo Tolstoy
The Kingdom Of God Is Within You — Leo Tolstoy
Jesus Was An Anarchist — Elbert Hubbard
Loaves and Fishes — Dorothy Day
The Book Of Ammon — Ammon Hennacy
Anarchy and Christianity — Jacques Ellul
The Technological Society — Jacques Ellul
The Monkey Wrench Gang — Edward Abbey
Against His-story, Against Leviathan — Fredy Perlman
Elements Of Refusal — John Zerzan
Future Primitive — John Zerzan
Against Civilization — ed. John Zerzan
Running On Emptiness — John Zerzan
Against The Megamachine — David Watson
Uncivilized: The Best of Green Anarchy — Green Anarchy Collective
Post-Scarcity Anarchism — Murray Bookchin
The Ecology of Freedom — Murray Bookchin
Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism — Murray Bookchin
Ecofascism — Janet Biehl and Peter Staudenmaier
The Unique And It’s Property — Max Stirner
Stirner’s Critics — Max Stirner
The Anarchists: A Picture of Civilization at the Close of the Nineteenth Century — John Henry Mackay
Toward the Creative Nothing — Renzo Novatore
The Right To Be Greedy: Theses On The Practical Necessity Of Demanding Everything — For Ourselves
Against The Logic Of Submission — Wolfi Landstreicher
Willful Disobedience — Wolfi Landstreicher
Society Of The Spectacle — Guy Debord
The Revolution of Everyday Life — Raoul Vaneigem
Caliban & The Witch — Silvia Federici
The Many Headed Hydra — Linebaugh and Rediker
Change The World Without Taking Power — John Holloway
The Coming Insurrection — Invisible Committee
Theory Of Bloom — Tiqqun
Empire — Hardt & Negri
Everything Must Go!: The Abolition of Value — Bruno Astarian & Gilles Dauvé
Nihilist Communism — Monsieur Dupont
Democratic Confederalism — Abdullah Öcalan
Capital As Power — Bichler & Nitzan
Pistols Drawn (publisher)
Desert — Anonymous
Blessed Is The Flame — Serafinski
baeden — baedan
Atentat — Various Authors
The Ethics Of Liberty — Murray Rothbard
Anatomy Of The State — Murray Rothbard
The Machinery Of Freedom — Thomas Friedman
Chaos Theory — Robert Murphy
Anarchy And The Law — Edward Stringham
The Problem of Political Authority — Michael Huemer
An Agorist Primer — Sam Edward Konkin III
Crypto Anarchy and Virtual Communities — Timothy C May
{1} Black Flame was written by a fascist entryist later exposed by antifascists and every copy was pulped by its anarchist publisher, but before that was revealed there was no more influential modern platformist text and it was required reading by Black Rose. most other relevant texts are just histories or proclamations of platformist or platformist-adjacent organizations like Love & Rage, NEFAC, Black Rose, Worker’s Solidarity Movement, Zabalaza, Federação Anarquista Gaúcha, etc... which NEFAC above text at least sketches.
{2} Proudhon may have launched anarchism, but he was a disgusting anti-semite misogynist. Markets Not Capitalism was originally geared primarily to persuade right-libertarians and, as a collection of highly varying writings from a wildly disparate writers, the book includes the noxious Brad Spangler, who was later revealed to be a child rapist, the book remains historically influential and sold by AK Press & Autonomedia, but that inclusion is a sharp downside. Both de Cleyre and Carson ultimately identified as ‘without adjectives’, neither rejected markets. C4SS has numerous followups but not of comparable historical import, they’re working on a revision named ‘Markets AGAINST Capitalism’ without Spangler.
{3} Ellul is the early fork point between primitivism and christian anarchism and could be shelved in either section. Edward Abbey was a virulent reactionary racist homophobe who most would casually classify as a fascist today. Zerzan came from marxist roots and propagated the term ‘primitivism’ and it’s impossible to overstate his influence and fame more broadly. Always pirate Green Anarchy rather than funding LBC which still publishes the project of a catholic alt-right edgelord who served as the mouthpiece of a genocidal anti-anarchist group, ITS, that tried to murder anarchists.
{4} I’ve included nothing from Bookchin after his explicit denunciation of anarchism. Biehl also ceased identification as an anarchist. Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism and the rest of his fight with Bob Black was a massive embarassment and painfully cringe to delve into, but also the biggest anarchist drama of the 90s. I’m putting Ocalan in the Marxism & fellow travellers section.
{5} I’ve included Stirner’s work here, despite Stirner never identifying as an anarchist and mocking them, because it’s not like you can read the anarchist currents of the egoist tradition without him. Wolfi’s recent translations are superior but make sure you don’t buy them through the fascist publisher. Also heads up that Wolfi was exposed as having defended child rape in the 80s, although a minority contest the passage. Ragnar Redbeard’s Might Is Right was unfortunately influential in many egoist spaces and cited/republished by some prominent ones, but is so flagrantly over-the-top fascist it would be beyond absurd to directly list it.
{6} Severely misnamed current invented/redefined in the last decade stealing valor from a completely different movement of russian hypermodernist social democrats and retroactively constructing a supposed tradition from sparse disconnected uses of the term by a few egoists. The most influential texts are not about true epistemic or moral nihilism, just pretty standard postleft stuff plus some tacked-on critiques of hope that many anarchists who long used “nihilism” as an epithet already shared, a complete mess of different philosophical claims and currents held together only by a shared aesthetic, only Pistols Drawn and Attentat really cover anything like “nihilism” and are also the least influential, relevant, or tolerable. see 325 for a distinct more european current focused on standard insurrection and anti-organizationalism. When it comes to buying, see the caveat in the egoist section re the ongoing boycott of LBC by anarchists. Their texts can be pirated on archive.org tho.)
{7} Severely divergent political movement started in the 50s with only thin initial connections to Spooner, Tucker, and Goldman. Rothbard bragged that he was stealing the term “anarchism” from what he thought was a dead movement. However later had surprisingly many crossovers with egoists, mutualists, and social ecologists. largely marked by supreme myopia of social conditions and power relations more obscured than a policeman’s gun. that which wasn’t already rabid apologia for power has almost completely devolved into reaction and crypto-fascism or otherwise tolerating nationalism, racist boogs, chuds, etc, see Hans Hermann Hoppe and the later Rothbard for the roots of the worst fascist stuff. what principled holdouts remain in academia are perpetually undermined by their right-wing cultural and social connections.