Category: Anarchism
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What Does Anarchy Mean? Definition, Examples and the Difference Between Anarchy and Chaos
What does anarchy actually mean? In everyday language, the word is often used as a synonym for chaos, disorder or the collapse of authority. Newspaper headlines may describe a violent crowd, a failed government or a breakdown of public order as “anarchy”. In political philosophy, however, the word has a different and much more specific…
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Carlo Cafiero in Barletta: Anarchism, History and Memory
Carlo Cafiero was born in Barletta on 1 September 1846. His life would take him far from the Apulian city: into the circles of the International, alongside Mikhail Bakunin, Friedrich Engels and Errico Malatesta, into the struggles of the workers’ movement and eventually into the insurrectionary experience of the Matese Band. Yet the relationship between…
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History of the Italian Anarchist Movement: Origins, Key Figures and Developments
Italian anarchism is one of the richest, most radical and most misunderstood political traditions in modern European history. Emerging from the great cycle of nineteenth-century social struggles, it developed as a revolutionary, internationalist and anti-authoritarian movement, leaving a profound mark on the history of social conflict, antifascism, trade unionism and Italian political culture. Exploring the…
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The Red-and-Black Anarchist Flag: History, Meaning and Origins
The historical origins of the anarchist flag are controversial and debated, but the different theories are rarely supported by adequate documentary evidence. Thanks to Massimo Ortalli of the Historical Archive of the Italian Anarchist Federation, I was able to consult the catalogue of workers’ flags. This book contains several studies and historical investigations into the…
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Anarchy Here and Now: Freedom as a Daily Practice
What if anarchy were not something we had to wait for? Anarchism is often imagined as a distant political horizon: a society without rulers, hierarchy or coercive authority that may one day emerge after a revolution or profound social transformation. Anarchy Here and Now: Freedom as a Daily Practice begins from a different question. What…