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ABOUT ANARCHISM by Nicolas Walter. Introduction by Natasha Walter. (Kindle, Kobo and MOBI files)

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Sep 112015

ABOUT ANARCHISM by Nicolas Walter. Introduction by Natasha Walter. Check out all Christiebooks titles HERE UK : £1.98 ; USA : $3.00 ; FRANCE : €2.69 ; GERMANY : €2.69 ; SPAIN : €2.69 ; ITALY: €2.69 ; NETHERLANDS : €2.69 ; JAPAN : ¥ 357 ; CANADA : CDN$ 3.98 ; BRAZIL : R$ 11.53 ; AUSTRALIA : $4.34 ; INDIA : R199 ; MEXICO : $50.82 — ChristieBooks on KOBO — ABOUT ANARCHISM £2.00 — For a MOBI or other eBook file — PAYPAL to christie@btclick.com — £2.00

A concise introduction to the theories and practice of anarchism by the late Nicolas Walter, lifelong libertarian socialist and editor of the New Humanist for 10 years. Introduced by Nicolas’s daughter, Natasha, ‘About Anarchism’ neatly summarises what anarchists believe, how they differ, what they want, and what they do.

“This is a struggle that we may not win and which may never end, but which is still worth fighting.”

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ANARCHISTS IN FICTION Edited by Stuart Christie (Kindle, KOBO and MOBI/PDF files)

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Sep 052015

Anarchists in Fiction Edited by Stuart Christie. Check out all Christiebooks titles HERE UK : £2.60 ; USA : $4.00 ; FRANCE : €3.58 ; GERMANY : €3.58 ; SPAIN : €3.58 ; ITALY: €3.58 ; NETHERLANDS : €3.58 ; JAPAN : ¥ 487 ; CANADA : CDN$ 4.96 ; BRAZIL : R$ 14.33 ; AUSTRALIA : $5.58 ; INDIA : R265 ; MEXICO : $67 ChristieBooks on KOBO — Anarchists in Fiction £2.50 — For a MOBI or other eBook file — PAYPAL to christie@btclick.com

In this anthology we aim to provide general insights into the role of the anarchist in fiction, both as protagonist (as angels and demons, but mostly demons) and author. Obviously, there will be writers whom some readers will think I have unjustifiably missed. All I can reply to such complainants is that you can’t please everyone and that there will be other opportunities in future issues. Meanwhile, it is best to allow the articles here to speak for themselves, without comment.

David Weir’s essay ‘Anarchist Fiction, Anarchist Sensibilities’ focuses on the progenitor of anarchist fiction, William Godwin’s Caleb Williams, a highly political novel, published in 1794, that demonstrated, in fictional form, the pressing need for the utopian system he described in the first systematic elaboration of anarchist philosophy, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice. ‘Epic Pooh’ is a newly updated revision of a 1978 article by Michael Moorcock (later published in his 1989 book Wizardry and Wild Romance) reviewing epic fantasy literature for children, particularly J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. While researching early twentieth-century French anarchist plays translated into Italian, Santo Catanuto discovered interesting information on the literary side of the indomitable Communard Louise Michel, indicating that she was the author of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea. Strapped for cash, she reputedly sold the manuscript to Jules Verne for 100 francs.

Léo Malet (7 March 1909 – 3 March 1996)

Stephen Schwartz, a longtime critic of the detective novel, evaluates the arc of French writer Leo Malet from anarchist to arabophobe and, in ‘Between Libel And Hoax’, counters Miguel Mir’s libellous depiction of the Spanish anarchist movement Entre el roig i el negre. In his discourse on B. Traven’s first full-length novel, The Death Ship, Ernest Larsen looks at the intractable modern problem of identity. Larsen’s short story ‘Bakunin At The Beach’ is about Mr and Mrs Bakunin holidaying at Lake Maggiore under the watchful eyes of Inspector Dupin of the Swiss Department of Justice and Police. Joseph Conrad’s short story ‘An Anarchist. A Desperate Tale’ is republished here from A Set of Six (1908), originally published in Harper’s Magazine in August 1906. ‘Anarchists in Fiction’ is a collection of idiosyncratic reviews of books in which anarchists are portrayed as an eclectic group of villains and criminal degenerates. This volume also includes three hitherto untranslated novelas by French noir author, anarchist André Héléna (1919-1972), and a short story, ‘The Butcher of Les Hurlus’, by another French libertarian, Jean Amila (Jean Meckert) (1910-1995). S.C.

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ANARCHISM IN MUSIC — Guest edited by Daniel O’Guérin (Kindle, Kobo and MOBI file)

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Sep 012015

Anarchism in Music Edited by Daniel O’Guérin. Check out all Christiebooks titles HERE UK : £1.95 ; USA : $3.00 ; FRANCE : €2.68 ; GERMANY : €2.68 ; SPAIN : €2.68 ; ITALY: €2.68 ; NETHERLANDS : €2.68 ; JAPAN : ¥ 365 ; CANADA : CDN$ 3.96 ; BRAZIL : R$ 10.74 ; AUSTRALIA : $4.18 ; INDIA : R198 ; MEXICO : $50.25 ChristieBooks on KOBO — Anarchism in Music Edited by Daniel O’Guérin, £2.50 — For a MOBI or other eBook file — PAYPAL to christie@btclick.com

In this eBook edition (Kindle, Kobo and MOBI file) of the third volume of the Arena series ($3.00 £2.00) we gather around the proverbial camp fire where we might listen to tunes to make our toes tap and to words which might reach into our hearts and pull us into a future of wild possibilities, daring us to dream. These songs of freedom push against convention, sing of finding ways and means to move beyond the confines of staid convention and the litany of war, poverty and misery that are the direct consequence of the edifice of capitalism and those frightened elites who hide cowering behind it.

In ancient Rome, after Constantine bent his knee to Christ (or at least saw the convenient propaganda in such a coat of many colours), the music of theatre and of festival dismayed the naysayers of the ascending Christian empire that grew in his wake; the frivolity and joyousness of celebrating life became anathema to the new social order bent on obedience to the will of God and, by divine right, those masters who perpetuated his will. And so they banned it.

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REVOLUTION AND EVERYDAY STRUGGLE by Errico Malatesta (Translated by Paul Sharkey). Kindle, Kobo and MOBI.

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Aug 292015

REVOLUTION AND EVERYDAY STRUGGLE by Errico Malatesta (appx 266 pp) Translated by Paul Sharkey. Check out all Christiebooks titles HERE UK : £2.55 ; USA : $4.00 ; FRANCE : €3.51 ; GERMANY : €3.51 ; SPAIN : €3.51 ; ITALY: €3.51 ; NETHERLANDS : €3.51 ; JAPAN : ¥ 488 ; CANADA : CDN$ 5.28 ; BRAZIL : R$ 14.00 ; AUSTRALIA : $5.47 ; INDIA : R263 ; MEXICO : $67.95 ChristieBooks on KOBO — REVOLUTION AND EVERYDAY STRUGGLE by Errico Malatesta, £2.50 — For a MOBI or other eBook file — PAYPAL to christie@btclick.com

Errico Malatesta (1853-1932) is, undoubtedly, one of the ” giants ” of the 19th century revolutionary movement— an agitator, man of action and a thought-provoking writer. Malatesta was active in the international anarchist movement both as activist and propagandist for nearly sixty years. As a glance through the archives of the anarchist press of the time will show, he was one of the movement’s most respected members, as well as one of its most controversial. He was active in many parts of the world, as well as the editor of a number of Italian anarchist journals, including the daily Umanita Nova. Half his life was spent in exile and the respect he was accorded by governments is insanely evidenced by the fact that he spent more than ten years in prison, mainly awaiting trial. Juries, by contrast, showed a different respect by almost always acquitting him, recognising that the only galantuomo, that the only honest man, was the one facing them in the prisoners’ cage!

Yet if there is merit in his ideas, it is through his experience in the day-to-day struggle and his identification with the working people as one of them. Malatesta had no illusions about the ” historic role of the masses”; he shared and understood their lives and reactions. But because he also understood how their oppressors “reasoned”, and how the “in-betweeners ” preached what they were too privileged, socially and materially, to practise, he expected more from the organised workers. Nevertheless he directed his propaganda to all men of good-will.

The texts in this anthology — from Gino Cerrito’s 1982 selection, Rivoluzione e lotta quotidiana — have never before been published in English, including in Vernon Richards’ ‘Malatesta. His Life and Ideas’ or, indeed, in David Turcato’s more recent anthology ‘The Complete Works of Malatesta’.

Malatesta (1970 Peter Lilienthal and Heathcote Williams) from Stuart Christie on Vimeo.

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SURREALISM IN THE SERVICE OF THE FANTASTIC Jean Rollin, a ‘Parallel’ Director in Libertarian French Cinema by Isabelle Marinone

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Aug 272015

SURREALISM IN THE SERVICE OF THE FANTASTIC Jean Rollin, a ‘Parallel’ Director in Libertarian French Cinema by Isabelle Marinone Check out all Christiebooks titles HERE UK : £1.27 ; USA : $2.00 ; FRANCE : €1.76 ; GERMANY : €1.76 ; SPAIN : €1.76 ; ITALY: €1.76 ; NETHERLANDS : €1.76 ; JAPAN : ¥ 244 ; CANADA : CDN$ 2.64 ; BRAZIL : R$ 7.00 ; AUSTRALIA : $2.73 ; INDIA : R132 ; MEXICO : $33.97 ChristieBooks on KOBO — SURREALISM IN THE SERVICE OF THE FANTASTIC Jean Rollin, a ‘Parallel’ Director in Libertarian French Cinema — For a MOBI or other eBook file — PAYPAL to christie@btclick.com

What dyed-in-the-wool cinephiles have always stupidly misinterpreted as amateurism, nonchalance or ineptitude on Rollin’s part (his disregard for linearity and logic, the influence of theatricality and pataphysics on his thoughts about directing, his well-meaning curiosity for erotic deviancy, his passion for the melodramatic) comes fully into its own as an aesthetic and, may we say, ideological option […] We are transported simultaneously into a Clovis Trouille painting or a Gaston Leroux novel, into a Max Ernst collage and a Grand Guignol play, into the gaudy cover of some old Fantômas and an episode from a silent serial, into The Castle of Otranto and the cavern of The Phantom in Bengal. Swimming against the tide of pyrotechnics in movies that confuse car chases and action, conventions and daring innovations, and digital trickery and mise en scène, Jean Rollin steers us back towards cinema. Genuine cinema, the sort that can make us shudder and cry, the sort that can leave us walking on air.

Jean-Pierre Bouyxou, “La Fiancée de Dracula”, foreword to Pascal Françaix’s Jean Rollin, cinéaste écrivain (Paris: Éditions Films ABC, 2002)

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MELCHOR RODRÍGUEZ (‘El Ángel Rojo’) and ‘Los Libertos’ by Alfonso Domingo. Translated by Paul Sharkey (Kindle, Kobo and MOBI editions)

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Aug 262015

MELCHOR RODRÍGUEZ (‘El Ángel Rojo’) and ‘Los Libertos’ by Alfonso Domingo (Translated by Paul Sharkey) Check out all Christiebooks titles HERE UK : £1.27 ; USA : $2.00 ; FRANCE : €1.76 ; GERMANY : €1.76 ; SPAIN : €1.76 ; ITALY: €1.76 ; NETHERLANDS : €1.76 ; JAPAN : ¥ 244 ; CANADA : CDN$ 2.64 ; BRAZIL : R$ 7.00 ; AUSTRALIA : $2.73 ; INDIA : R132 ; MEXICO : $33.97 ChristieBooks on KOBO — MELCHOR RODRÍGUEZ (‘El Ángel Rojo’) and ‘Los Libertos’ — For a MOBI or other eBook file — PAYPAL to christie@btclick.com

A portrait of Melchor Rodríguez García (also known as El Ángel Rojo – ‘The Red Angel’; 1893, —February 14, 1972) — a former bullfighter — he was a Spanish anarcho-syndicalist of the CNT-FAI (Iberian Anarchist Federation), and the Director-General of Prisons in Madrid during the early part of the Spanish Civil War. He was responsible not only for the prisoners’ security and prevention of escapes, but – more importantly – for preventing their extra-judicial murder by political opponents and vigilante lynch mobs. The most notable of such incidents occurred following an air raid on Alcalá de Henares air base. A group of protesters, some of whom were armed, arrived at the prison, stormed the gates and demanded that the cells be opened and the nationalist prisoners be handed to the crowd. Melchor Rodríguez appeared in the prison, ordered the crowd to disperse and even announced that he would rather arm the prisoners than hand them over to the mob. Among the saved prisoners were rightist General Valentín Gallarza, notable football player Ricardo Zamora, politician Ramón Serrano Súñer, Rafael Sánchez Mazas and Raimundo Fernández-Cuesta. During his term in office, Melchor Rodríguez García also revealed that José Cazorla Maure, a counsellor of state security of the Council of Defence of Madrid organized a net of private, illegal prisons (chekas) run by the Communist Party of Spain. Later in the war he became one of Madrid’s counsellors, on behalf of the Iberian Anarchist Federation, and after the fall of Madrid in 1939, as Mayor, he officially passed the city administration over to the Francoist victors.

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NATIONALISM AND CULTURE by Rudolf Rocker (Translated by Ray E. Chase) Kindle and Kobo editions (£2.25 ;$4.00 ;€3.51)

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Aug 252015

NATIONALISM AND CULTURE by Rudolf Rocker (Translated by Ray E. Chase) Complete edition (Books I & II, with all 27 chapters, including bibliography and index. Appx. 713 pp) NOW AVAILABLE ON KINDLE (READ INSIDE) and KOBO. Check out all Christiebooks titles HERE UK : £2.25 ; USA : $4.00 ; FRANCE : €3.51 ; GERMANY : €3.51 ; SPAIN : €3.51 ; ITALY: €3.51 ; NETHERLANDS : €3.51 ; JAPAN : ¥ 488 ; CANADA : CDN$ 5.28 ; BRAZIL : R$ 14.00 ; AUSTRALIA : $5.47 ; INDIA : R263 ; MEXICO : $67.95 ChristieBooks on KOBO — NATIONALISM AND CULTURE, £2.50

Nationalism and Culture is a detailed and scholarly study of the development of nationalism and the changes in human cultures from the dawn of history to the present day and an analysis of the relations of these to one another. It tells the story of the growth of the State and the other institutions of authority and their influence on life and manners, on architecture and art, on literature and thought. Nationalism and Culture is, primarily, a 600-page (appx 713pp on Kindle/Kobo) exploration of the origins and development of nationalism, and a scathing denunciation of the corrosive effect of national feeling on the human spirit. Yet it is one of those works, like The Anatomy of Melancholy (Robert Burton, 1621), that springboard from their stated purpose to discourse on everything under the sun. Architecture is analyzed, socialism is defended, and Rembrandt’s paintings are scrutinized at length. It is at once a treatise on the state’s relationship with culture and a manifesto for an enlightened leftism. Most of all, it is a clear-eyed plea for sanity at a moment when nationalist and religious irrationalism threatened to swallow the globe. It could not be more relevant. Rocker’s thesis is straightforward: Nations are the products of states, rather than vice versa. They are manufactured to serve the goals of the powerful, to divide human beings and keep them from recognizing their common interests. Rocker argues this point with a litany of historical examples, from the Renaissance to “the stupid and stumbling provisions of the Versailles treaty.”

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RACE MADNESS by Camillo Berneri (Translated by Paul Sharkey) Kindle and Kobo editions

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Aug 172015

RACE MADNESS by Camillo Berneri (Translated by Paul Sharkey) NOW AVAILABLE ON KINDLE — READ INSIDE. Check out all Christiebooks titles HERE UK : £1.92 ; USA : $3.00 ; FRANCE : €2.70 ; GERMANY : €2.70 ; SPAIN : €2.70 ; ITALY: €2.70 ; NETHERLANDS : €2.70 ; JAPAN : ¥ 373 ; CANADA : CDN$ 3.93 ; BRAZIL : R$ 10.45 ; AUSTRALIA : $4.06 ; INDIA : R195 ; MEXICO : $49.12 ChristieBooks on KOBO — RACE MADNESS £2.00

A 1934 essay by Italian anarchist Camillo Berneri (1897-1937) exploring the contentious issue of eugenics, race and racial prejudice in pre-war Europe and the United States, the so-called advanced nations. In Austria, in October 1933, the courts granted a divorce in a marriage contracted between an Aryan and a Jewess, in a verdict in which the grounds cited include incompatibility deriving from race difference between the spouses, a difference that ought “in a symbiosis as close as marriage, inevitably trigger profound frictions.” In Lithuania the National Socialist Party there called for a ban on marriages between Jews and non-Jews. In France a blatantly racist and anti-semitic Celtic League was launched while in the United States of America there were laws banning marriages between blacks and whites, there are universities closed to black students and anthropologists who talk of an American race (not to mention lynching!). And, in Italy, the Italian nationalist press included La Razza, La Stirpe, Il Grido della Stirpe, etc…

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PRISIONERO DE FRANCO Los anarquistas en la lucha contra la dictadura Miguel García García (Traducción y notas de José Ignacio Álvarez Fernández) Kindle and Kobo editions

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Aug 152015

PRISIONERO DE FRANCO Los anarquistas en la lucha contra la dictadura por Miguel García García (Traducción y notas de José Ignacio Álvarez Fernández) NOW AVAILABLE ON KINDLE — READ INSIDE. Check out all Christiebooks titles HERE UK : £2.58 ; USA : $4.02 ; FRANCE : €3.56 ; GERMANY : €3.56 ; SPAIN : €3.56 ; ITALY: €3.56 ; NETHERLANDS : €3.56 ; JAPAN : ¥ 497 ; CANADA : CDN$ 5.25 ; BRAZIL : R$ 14.03 ; AUSTRALIA : $5.39 ; INDIA : R255 ; MEXICO : $64.63 ChristieBooks on KOBO — PRISIONERO DE FRANCO Los anarquistas en la lucha contra la dictadura £2.50

El presente testimonio narra la aventura vital del joven libertario Miguel García, fallecido en Londres en 1981. Miguel García forma parte de una generación excepcional de combatientes que dedicaron su vida a luchar contra el fascismo y a lograr una sociedad más justa y libre. Este testimonio, aparecido en Inglaterra en 1972 bajo el título de Franco’s Prisoner, y nunca antes publicado en español. En él García rememora sus años de lucha durante la guerra civil, su internamiento en diferentes campos de concentración, y su participación en la resistencia antifranquista formando parte del grupo guerrillero Talión, motivo por el que será condenado a la pena de muerte en 1952 y que posteriormente le fue conmutada. En total veinte años de penalidades en las mazmorras de la dictadura hasta su excarcelación en 1969. El horror y la brutalidad del universo totalitario franquista que aparece retratado en este libro nos confronta con el destino de los perdedores, de los vencidos, tan alejado del fulgurante triunfo, y con la disyuntiva de cómo sobrevivir y mantener viva la esperanza después de una derrota que supuso el fin del sueño igualitario por el que habían luchado millones de liberales, republicanos, marxistas y libertarios españoles. — José Ignacio Álvarez Fernández

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PERE BOADAS Pioneer of the anarcho-syndicalist action groups in 1920s Barcelona by Josep A Carreras (Translated by Paul Sharkey)

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Aug 102015

PERE BOADAS Pioneer of the anarcho-syndicalist action groups in 1920s Barcelona by Josep A Carreras (Translated by Paul Sharkey — Kindle and Kobo editions)
NOW AVAILABLE ON KINDLE — READ INSIDE. Check out all Christiebooks titles HERE UK : £1.94 ; USA : $3.00 ; FRANCE : €2.74 ; GERMANY : €2.74 ; SPAIN : €2.74 ; ITALY: €2.74 ; NETHERLANDS : €2.74 ; JAPAN : ¥ 373 ; CANADA : CDN$ 3.94 ; BRAZIL : R$ 10.52 ; AUSTRALIA : $4.04 ; INDIA : R191 ; MEXICO : $48.47

ChristieBooks on KOBO — PERE BOADAS Pioneer of the anarcho-syndicalist action groups in 1920s Barcelona £2.00

1920 Pere Boada Ribas, anarcosindicalista

Pedro Boadas, police mugshot 1920s

PERE (PEDRO) BOADAS I RIVAS was born in Barcelona in 1894 and died in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1972. Together with Medir Mart and Pere Vandellós, he was one of the leaders of the first anarcho-syndicalist action group organised in Catalonia from late 1917 onwards, before the six-year period of “pistolerismo” erupted in Barcelona. He can, therefore, be regarded as the pioneer of those Barcelona anarcho-syndicalist action groups of which so much has been said; though little is known about the individual protagonists themselves.

From 1917 to 1924, when he was arrested for the last time in Barcelona, Pere Boadas was the coordinator of the many action groups that emerged in the course of the social warfare between anarcho-syndicalist activists and the employers’ and police gunmen.

In 1927 he emerged from prison and, after a trip to Paris in 1928, he emigrated to Montevideo in Uruguay where he contacted the expropriator anarchist action groups carrying out holdups for the cause; the most active and most wanted of these groups in both Uruguay and Argentina was the one led by Miguel Arcángel Roscigno.

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