Issue #74 is the beginning of the third (almost uninterrupted) decade of Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed. As discussed in the previous double issue, we are scaling back our format to keep with the yearly schedule, and therefore will not be producing any more double issues. Jobs, parenthood, loss -- life in general -- continue to keep us from getting back to our twice-yearly schedule. That said, we are looking forward to relaunching our website, which will have many more interactive features (including what we hope will be a lively selection of forums). Monthly updates are part of the plan; book and media reviews as well as columns/rants will be an integral part of it, as well as reprints from back issues and teasers from current ones. Please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you think you'd like to join in.
With this issue we would like to welcome Arlian, who has contributed many reviews over the past two years, to the production/editorial crew. We have valued her numerous contributions as a writer, and now she is helping to make important, and sometimes difficult, decisions. We appreciate all her energy and the many times she has prodded the rest of us old codgers to get off our collective asses.
It was with great sadness that we learned of the passing of our neighbor, friend, ally, and colleague Audrey Goodfriend. As mentioned briefly in the touching appreciation by LD, Audrey modeled our previous t-shirt design. She decided to bow out of being a spokesmodel due to not very veiled threats coming from supporters of AK Press in the wake of their vendetta against our project. Regardless, she never let that deter her from associating and socializing with us in public and from being part of various outside projects each of us was involved in.
We had to cut several reviews and an essay from this issue to keep it to a lean 72 pages, but the book reviews will be a large part of the website relaunch, while the essay ("Occupational Hazards: The Rise and Limitations of Occupy Oakland," by our friends in the Anti-Bureaucratic Bloc) will continue to be available as a separate pamphlet (see the subscription information page for ordering details). What may be -- at least we hope -- a provocative and controversial review is of the Ardent Press book Enemies of Society: An Anthology of Individualist & Egoist Thought, which should be required reading for any serious student of anarchist theory.
Over the next 70 pages, readers will be treated to the same kind of pointed and critically engaged reviews, essays, and columns you've come to expect from Anarchy. We're trying to keep the book reviews limited to current (within the past 18-24 months) releases, while focusing our essays more on the theory of anarchy (not necessarily anarchism -- see the review of Words at the end of the Media Reviews) mixed in with some history. For the latter, we are honored to be able to reprint the biographical essay on an important theorist and militant of the Mexican Revolution, PrĂ¡xedis Guerrero, who originated the much-misattributed slogan, "It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees."
We have decided to list the various projects and periodicals that we have not reviewed, but with which we have exchange subscriptions. Some of them may be defunct; we have not had contact with some of them for over two years. Nevertheless, we remain committed to the existence and dissemination of anarchist print (and video and recorded) media, so if you produce such a project, or are familiar with projects other readers should know about that we have not listed, please spread the word that we are still going against the tide of what many commentators continue to refer to as the death of print media in favor of an exclusively online presence. Like many independent bookstores, we plan to hold out for what we believe will be a resurgence.
We wanted to decrease the cover price for this and future issues, but the cost of printing (while still affordable thanks to many friends who are extending as much of a discount as possible for their important assistance and support), coupled with the runaway increases of postage, unfortunately make that impossible. As a continual part of our DIY distribution model, there will be a renewed push to get Anarchy into local infoshops and independent bookstores as well as municipal and university libraries. Contact us if you know of any place where our journal might fit in, or better yet, contact those places directly and request that they carry our journal.
Many events, both demoralizing (the firebombing of Freedom Bookstore in London) and exhilarating (the emergence of an explicitly anarchist black bloc in Cairo) have occurred in the past months. But since we are not a news magazine, we have nothing written about these or other events that might be pertinent to anarchists here and abroad. We hope our renewed (but definitely not exclusive) online presence will be a positive setting for such discussions.