Join the AK Press E-mail List for a Chance to Win!
By Suzanne | July 2, 2013
AK Press is giving away a set of our five latest releases: Cartography of Revolutionary Anarchism, Anarchism and Workers’ Self-Management in Revolutionary Spain, In the Shadow of the Sabertooth, Anarchists Against the Wall, and Stay Solid! (Total value: $78)!
For your chance to win this set of books, just sign up for our e-mail list! Everyone who signs up between now and July 15 will be automatically entered to win. Visit this link to join our e-mail list and enter the contest: http://bit.ly/15gJUSc
If you are already on our e-mail list, you’re also eligible; just see our next e-mail update for more information on how to enter.
Topics: AK Distribution, AK News | No Comments »
Send Books to Grand Jury Resistor Jerry Koch!
By Suzanne | July 1, 2013
As of the time of writing this, anarchist grand jury resistor Jerry Koch has been incarcerated for more than a month and ten days, just for refusing to collaborate with the State. If you aren’t familiar with grand juries or with Jerry’s case, you can read more at jerryresists.net. AK Press stands in solidarity with Jerry and all political prisoners. We have offered to help Jerry’s support committee out by coordinating the effort to get him some much-needed reading material while he is locked up.
Here’s how it works: we’ve gotten a list of titles that Jerry has requested (below). We’ll keep this list updated as we send him books, and as we learn of new requests. If you would like to send a book to Jerry, just order it via the AK Press website and list him as the recipient. As with any order being sent to a prisoner, we will apply a 30% discount to your order after we receive it.
The books Jerry has requested so far are:
-Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism
-We the Anarchists: A Study Of The Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI) 1927–1937
-The Story of the Iron Column: Militant Anarchism in the Spanish Civil War
-Italian Anarchism 1864-1892
-Rage and Reason
Jerry’s address (to use on your order, or to send him other mail) is:
GERALD KOCH #68631-054
MCC NEW YORK
METROPOLITAN CORRECTIONAL CENTER
150 PARK ROW
NEW YORK, NY 10007
We are willing to post book lists for other political prisoners, as well—if you’re on a support committee or working with someone else who is locked up, please get in touch!
Topics: Current Events | No Comments »
Help us support the work of Upside Down World!
By Suzanne | May 17, 2013
Our friends at Upside Down World are celebrating ten years of reporting on social movements and politics in Latin America! And in order to ensure that they can keep doing what they’ve been doing for the last decade, they are running a fund drive to cover their operating expenses. We’ve come up with a way that we can all help them out—and you can pick up some new reading material in the process! From now through May 26, for each sale the following AK Press titles on Latin America (in either print or e-book format) through akpress.org, we’ll donate $5 to Upside Down World!
Titles included in this fundraiser are:
The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia (Benjamin Dangl)
New social movements have emerged in Bolivia over the “price of fire—access to basic elements of survival like water, gas, land, coca, employment, and other resources. Though these movements helped pave the way to the presidency for indigenous coca-grower Evo Morales in 2005, they have made it clear that their fight for self-determination doesn’t end at the ballot box. From the first moments of Spanish colonization to today’s headlines, The Price of Fire offers a gripping account of clashes in Bolivia between corporate and people’s power, contextualizing them regionally, culturally, and historically.
Territories in Resistance: A Cartography of Latin American Social Movements (Raul Zibechi)
“Emancipation,” argues Raúl Zibechi, “is not an objective but a way of life.” For the last half century, new and emancipatory social formations have worked to carve out their own territories in Latin America, experimenting in rural and urban settings with new forms of liberatory politics that challenge neocolonialism, neoliberalism, and the very basis of the state itself. Not limited to a single path, these “societies in movement” have adopted forms of communitarian relations that allow experimentation and innovation to flourish at a riveting pace. Blending case studies and history with social theory and analysis, Zibechi opens our eyes to the new world being born just outside our gaze.
A Poetics of Resistance: The Revolutionary Public Relations of the Zapatista Insurgency (Jeff Conant)
While much has been written on the history of the Zapatista insurgency and on the communiqués of Subcomandante Marcos, very little has been said about Zapatismo: the ideologies, organizing methodologies, and communications strategies of the movement. The appeal of the Zapatistas, and their survival, has as much to do with their goals as with the compelling and wildly effective language and aesthetics they’ve used to convey their vision. Jeff Conant offers an engaging and innovative tool for organizers and educators to understand how the Zapatistas’ strategy works, and to continue developing and refining their effective messages of participatory, bottom-up revolution.
Zapatista Spring: Anatomy of a Rebel Water Project & the Lessons of International Solidarity (Ramor Ryan)
Eight volunteers converge to help campesinos build a water system in Chiapas—a strategy to bolster the Zapatista insurgency by helping locals to assert their autonomy. These outsiders come to question the movement they’ve traveled so far to support—and each other—when forced into a world so unlike the poetic communiqués of Subcomandante Marcos—a world of endemic rural poverty, parochialism, and shifting loyalties to the movement. The quiet dignity of the local compañeros and echoes of B. Traven, Conrad, and Camus, round out this epic yarn.
More about Upside Down World, from their appeal for support:
“Ten years ago U
pside Down World began as a website with a small group of writers scattered around the hemisphere, reporting on the emerging leftist politicians and burgeoning social movements that would go on to reshape the region. Neoliberalism had dug its own grave, and grassroots struggles and socialist policies were paving a new path for Latin America. Foreign corporations were ousted in popular uprisings, and presidents were elected across the region on anti-imperialist, progressive platforms. Upside Down World was there from the beginning, reporting from the ballot boxes and inaugurations, and later when the celebratory confetti turned into teargas and protests. From the victories and failures of the left and the everyday struggles of social movements for a better world, Upside Down World has reported on the roller coaster of the past decade without stopping. And we need your help to continue the ride…
From the Andes Mountains to the shores of the Caribbean, Upside Down World works hard to bring you regular news and analysis on grassroots politics and social change across the hemisphere. Our reporters are based on the frontlines of struggles over mining, soybean cultivation and human rights. Our site breaks stories long before they hit the pages of the New York Times. And Upside Down World always puts the actions, demands and voices of social movements at the top of our concerns.”
You can read the whole appeal here.
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Review of Sewing Freedom by Chris Brickell
By christa | April 11, 2013
Jared Davidson’s new book is a history of both an influential figure – Philip Josephs – and a movement: anarchism in New Zealand. It is a beautifully-written and impeccably-researched volume that brings to our attention an often overlooked aspect of our political history.
Sewing Freedom traces the journey of Josephs and his family from Latvia to Scotland and then to Wellington in 1903, where he ran a tailor’s shop and distributed anarchist literature. ‘Between sewing machines, pulleys, pressing irons and a button-hole machine, workers could converse, browse anarchist pamphlets … and measure up for a custom-made suit’. Over time, Josephs helped to spread anarchist ideas from one end of New Zealand to the other, including the work of key international figures: Pyotr Kropotkin, Mikhail Bakunin and Emma Goldman, among others. The indefatigable Josephs also took part in protests on behalf of workers and against the tyrannies of governments and bosses.
Davidson clearly situates anarchism in relation to wider transnational labour movements over the first two decades of the twentieth century, and demonstrates the relationships between anarchist thinkers and activists both here and overseas. Along with Josephs, we meet Christchurch chemistry professor Alexander Bickerton as well as several immigrants: English doctor and eugenicist Thomas Macdonald – an acquaintance of Kropotkin – and German billiard table maker Johann Trunk. The reader gains a clear sense of international connections as well as Josephs’ ‘key role in the establishment of a distinct anarchist identity and culture’ in New Zealand.
Topics: AK Authors!, Reviews | No Comments »
Freedom Bookshop and Press Firebombed
By christa | February 1, 2013
Freedom Books the oldest anarchist publisher (founded by Charlotte Wilson and Peter Kropotkin in 1886) was firebombed this morning. No one was hurt, but they lost a substantial number of books and equipment.
They will be hosting a clean up day tomorrow (Saturday 2/2/13) at 1pm and need lots of helpful hands.
If you can’t make it to the clean up you can help them out from afar by buying books online and e-mailing to let them know your purchase was a donation: http://www.freedompress.org.uk/news/bookshop/shop-online/
Stay Up to Date on the Repairs:
Solidarity,
The AK Press Collective
Topics: AK Allies, Anarchist Publishers | No Comments »
Interesting critique of the Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair
By AK Press | January 22, 2013
There’s an interesting discussion brewing around the annual Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair. We saw this posted on Anarchist News this morning … follow this link to the original if you’re interested to see what others have said (but remember that Anarchist News has a tendency to turn into a free for all, in mighty unproductive ways).
Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair is all PM Press
Tue, 01/22/2013 – 12:40 | Anonymous
The 2013 Bay Area Book Fair speaker list is in. 15 of the 19 authors are PM Press authors. At least five, probably closer to half, of those PM authors do not self-describe as anarchists. With the Bay Area Book Fair being organized by Ramsey Kanaan, co-founder of PM Press, I suppose this doesn’t come as much of a surprise.
The Bay Area Book Fair exists, then, to promote PM Press and its authors, a fact that is clearly visible by the overwhelming dominance of PM authors in the lineup. So who is PM Press? While PM press presents itself to anarchists as an anarchist press, publishing a wide variety of anarchist books, it is not an anarchist press. It is a traditionally run, hierarchical business with bosses and owners. Ramsey and Craig, the owners, are using their years of work in anarchist publishing to continue to market to us without doing the hard work of not being bosses and minor capitalists who profit off the work of others. (In fact, despite being a traditional business, they continue in the anarchist practice of using volunteer labor.)
Topics: Anarchist Publishers, Happenings, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Rum & Revolution
By AK Press | January 7, 2013
A friend sent us this photo of the tribute he left for Ricardo Flores Magon…
Topics: AK Allies, AK Authors! | No Comments »
Holiday Ordering Guidelines (or, how to make sure your gift order arrives in time!)
By AK Press | December 7, 2012
Domestic
- UPS Ground – Order by Thursday Dec 13 at Midnight (UPS does not guarantee holiday ground shipment delivery dates, but recommends 7 business days)
- USPS Priority Mail – Order by Tuesday, Dec 18 at Midnight
International
- UPS Ground to Canada - Order by Monday Dec 10 at Midnight (UPS does not guarantee holiday ground shipment delivery dates, but recommends 10 business days)
- USPS Priority Mail Mexico/Australia/Asia – Order by Monday, Dec 10 at Midnight
- USPS Priority Mail Canada/Europe – Order by Thursday, Dec 13 at Midnight
Topics: AK Distribution | No Comments »
New book on Puerto Rican Anarchism needs your support
By kate | November 27, 2012
Our comrade Jorell is raising money to help support the publication of a new book on anarchism in Puerto Rico. Check it out, and consider donating if you have the capability!
Topics: AK Allies, AK Distribution, Anarchist Publishers, Spanish | No Comments »
LIVING GHOSTS
By Zach | November 11, 2012
Living Ghosts
Not as ghost of Moloch dead,
But as ghost of Moloch living,
Speaks the State in accents dread,
Stones instead of life-bread giving;
Shall we falter, cringe, and kneel
’Neath its heavy iron heel?
On, on! drink unto the lees!
Martyrs lead the way with pride,
Conqu’ring death e’en when they died:
PARSONS! FISCHER! ENGEL! SPIES!
O’er the graves of Waldheim’s dead,
Where the spotless snow is falling,
Glares above them Law’s dread head
Timid Souls with fear appalling.
See! Take hope! To Courage Cling!
Yonder rises Louis Lingg!
On! on! spread unto the breeze
The red flag beneath whose fold
Stand the souls of leaders bold:
PARSONS! FISCHER! ENGEL! SPIES!
Moloch! Christ! Mahomet! State!
Sword and fagot! cell and gallows!
Hath mankind no higher fate
Than what grim oppression hallows?
Up against the foulsome thing,
Call to aid the Ghost of Lingg!
On! on! mankind dimly sees
’Neath the banner of the poor
Opening wide fair Freedom’s door:
PARSONS! FISCHER! ENGEL! SPIES!
—Dyer D. Lum
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
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