David Goodway
Liverpool University Press (2006)
Reviewed by Judy Greenway
Reprinted with Permission from Anarchist Studies Journal
Coming out as an anarchist has some similarities to coming out as gay. A life-threatening admission in some times and places; in Britain today, likely to be met with scorn, disbelief or a patronising, amused tolerance. Goodway writes feelingly of the impact of such attitudes on his own life and work as a historian. Publishers are wary of the subject, and researching anarchism is not the best way to get on in academia.1 More importantly, the political invisibility of British anarchism means, according to Goodway, that contemporary movements for change are missing out on crucial insights that anarchist example and analysis could provide. To adapt a phrase from one of his subjects, E.P. Thompson, this book attempts to rescue anarchists and anarchism from the enormous condescension of scholars and political activists.
Britain may not have had an anarchist movement as such, but, Goodway argues, it has had “a distinguished, minority intellectual, overwhelmingly literary anarchist — and [… ] libertarian — tradition”, part of “a submerged but creative and increasingly relevant current of social and political theory and practice” (pp.10, 11). Acknowledging this tradition and its influences is, he believes, crucial if present-day radical activists are to learn from the past and not unnecessarily to re-invent, re-theorize, what is already there.
The book focuses on eleven writers representing a spectrum from left libertarianism to fully fledged anarchism in all its diverse manifestations. The central figures, Edward Carpenter, Oscar Wilde, John Cowper Powys, Herbert Read, Aldous Huxley, Alex Comfort, Christopher Pallis and Colin Ward, are each assessed on the basis of their contribution to anarchist thought. The remaining three, William Morris, George Orwell and E.P. Thompson, are discussed in the context of movements and events which have been particularly significant for anarchists in Britain: the late nineteenth/early twentieth century upsurge in anarchism, libertarian socialism and the labour movement; the Spanish Civil War; and the emergence, towards the end of the 1950s, of the new left and the campaign for nuclear disarmament. A host of other familiar and unfamiliar characters make brief, tantalising appearances.
Rather than seeking to produce a pure line of anarchist thought, the book traces influences, continuities and discontinuities, networks of association: a culture of anarchist ideas refracted through novels, essays, journalism, and political pamphlets, in fields ranging from sexology to town planning. The book is also indirectly a political autobiography: Goodway makes it clear how his subjects have contributed to the development of his own ideas, placing himself within the social and political cultures he discusses.
From these diverse sources emerges a complex vision of anarchism with an emphasis on the here and now, on the transformation of the everyday; which asserts the importance of sexuality and emotions as well as economics, of self-liberation as well as self-management, of transcendence as well as activism. Concerned that some chroniclers of British anarchism romanticise violence, Goodway argues that the identification of anarchism with terrorism and bomb-throwing devastated the emergent movement in the late nineteenth century, and warns against reinforcing that stereotypical image. Pointing out the immense contribution of anarchists to the anti-war movements of the twentieth century, he contends that “the most original, creative anarchist thinking over the last seventy years has been within anarcho-pacifism. In an increasingly violent world […] non-violent tactics have the most to commend them, to offer to present and future movements seeking radical reconstruction, and to allow the anarchist seeds beneath the snow to germinate” (p.14).2 (Goodway’s primary focus on individuals means that he gives only passing mention to the journal Peace News, since the 1930s a significant forum for the discussion of anarcho-pacifist ideas.)
This is an ambitious project, and in places the analysis gets lost in the detail. I found myself wishing alternately that the book was longer (so as to develop its arguments more fully) or shorter (so as to sharpen them up). Better copy-editing by the publishers would have addressed some unclear writing and repetition. However, every reader should be able to dig in and find something of value among the rich variety of material on offer.
The writers Goodway chooses to focus on were, he says, selected for their merit, importance and interest. On these criteria, Powys gets two chapters on the basis of his original contribution to anarchist thought and his under-appreciation as a literary figure. Colin Ward and Christopher Pallis get welcome acknowledgment for their role in disseminating as well as generating anarchist and libertarian ideas. There is no-one here who does not deserve recognition, but I was struck that no woman gets more than a couple of paragraphs in this book. Of course, any list can be criticised for its inclusions and exclusions, but does this omission imply that there have been no important women anarchist or left libertarian writers in Britain? The absence or lesser role of women within particular anarchist and left libertarian circles (and histories) itself calls for serious historical and political analysis. A different version of anarchist literary and intellectual tradition might emerge from a recognition of British women writers who influenced and were influenced by anarchist and libertarian ideas: Mary Wollstonecraft, whose feminism inspired so many women anarchists; poet and pamphleteer Louisa Bevington; Dora Marsden, suffragette, philosopher, and editor of The Freewoman; novelist and commentator Rebecca West; popular novelist and propagandist Ethel Mannin; historian Sheila Rowbotham, among many others. An approach which included both women and men, and asked questions about the gendering of anarchism, could begin to transform our ideas about what anarchist history is, what anarchist stories — and possibilities — there might be.
But all histories are incomplete histories, contributions to an ongoing debate, and Goodway’s book should help to shift perceptions of anarchism amongst academics and activists. It is above all a welcome scholarly and political resource, which draws on extensive research and a passionate commitment to argue that in “the harsh winter of the present” we face the stark choice – anarchism or annihilation (p.337). For him, the anarchist ideas exemplified by the chosen writers are the seeds beneath the snow from which a new future could grow. A book such as this, which provokes disagreements, which prompts further research, analysis, and debate, which increases the visibility and viability of anarchism, helps to nurture that possibility.
June 9, 2010
Anarchism, History, Publication Reviews