Means and Ends

An expansive and accessible account of anarchism as a theory of practice.A new, in-depth look at the revolutionary strategy of anarchism in Europe and the United States between 1868 and 1939. Zoe Baker, creator of a popular Youtube series on radical history and political theory, brings her trademark clarity and accessibility to this debut book. Cutting through misperceptions and historical inaccuracies, she shows how the reasons anarchists gave for supporting or opposing particular strategies were grounded in a specific theoretical frameworka theory of practice. The consistent and coherent heart of anarchism, Baker shows, is the understanding that, as people engage in activitypolitical or otherwisethey simultaneously change the world and themselves. Put another way, the means that revolutionaries propose to achieve social change have to involve forms of activity through which people can become individuals capable of overthrowing capitalism and the state as well as building a better society. Behind this simple premisethat anarchist ends can only be achieved through anarchist meanslies a wealth of fascinating historical and theoretical detail that Baker presents clearly and engagingly.