Jura Books | Keen for Revolution? @import url("http://web.archive.org./web/20161016034830cs_/http://www.jura.org.au/modules/system/system.base.css?oa3l5d"); @import url("http://web.archive.org./web/20161016034830cs_/http://www.jura.org.au/modules/system/system.menus.css?oa3l5d"); @import url("http://web.archive.org./web/20161016034830cs_/http://www.jura.org.au/modules/system/system.messages.css?oa3l5d"); @import url("http://web.archive.org./web/20161016034830cs_/http://www.jura.org.au/modules/system/system.theme.css?oa3l5d"); @import url("http://web.archive.org./web/20161016034830cs_/http://www.jura.org.au/modules/aggregator/aggregator.css?oa3l5d"); @import url("http://web.archive.org./web/20161016034830cs_/http://www.jura.org.au/sites/all/modules/calendar/css/calendar_multiday.css?oa3l5d"); @import url("http://web.archive.org./web/20161016034830cs_/http://www.jura.org.au/modules/comment/comment.css?oa3l5d"); @import url("http://web.archive.org./web/20161016034830cs_/http://www.jura.org.au/sites/all/modules/date/date_api/date.css?oa3l5d"); @import url("http://web.archive.org./web/20161016034830cs_/http://www.jura.org.au/sites/all/modules/date/date_popup/themes/datepicker.1.7.css?oa3l5d"); @import url("http://web.archive.org./web/20161016034830cs_/http://www.jura.org.au/sites/all/modules/date/date_repeat_field/date_repeat_field.css?oa3l5d"); @import url("http://web.archive.org./web/20161016034830cs_/http://www.jura.org.au/modules/field/theme/field.css?oa3l5d"); @import url("http://web.archive.org./web/20161016034830cs_/http://www.jura.org.au/modules/node/node.css?oa3l5d"); @import url("http://web.archive.org./web/20161016034830cs_/http://www.jura.org.au/modules/search/search.css?oa3l5d"); @import url("http://web.archive.org./web/20161016034830cs_/http://www.jura.org.au/modules/user/user.css?oa3l5d"); @import url("http://web.archive.org./web/20161016034830cs_/http://www.jura.org.au/modules/forum/forum.css?oa3l5d"); @import url("http://web.archive.org./web/20161016034830cs_/http://www.jura.org.au/sites/all/modules/views/css/views.css?oa3l5d"); @import url("http://web.archive.org./web/20161016034830cs_/http://www.jura.org.au/sites/all/modules/ctools/ctools/css/ctools.css?oa3l5d"); @import url("http://web.archive.org./web/20161016034830cs_/http://www.jura.org.au/sites/all/modules/taxonomy_access/taxonomy_access.css?oa3l5d"); @import url("http://web.archive.org./web/20161016034830cs_/http://www.jura.org.au/sites/all/themes/bealestreet/style.css?oa3l5d"); @import url("http://web.archive.org./web/20161016034830cs_/http://www.jura.org.au/sites/all/themes/bealestreet/css/red.css?oa3l5d"); #page { width: 95%; } .topBlock, .bottomBlock, .middleWrapper, #loginWrapper { width : 95%; } #sidebar-left, .region-sidebar-first { width : 210px; } #sidebar-right, .region-sidebar-second { width : 210px; } body { font-family : Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; } Skip to main content Welcome Visitor: Login/Register Search Search About Bookshop Library Blog Images Audio Events Contact Donate Links Upcoming events ASF meeting 16/10/2016 - 12:30pm to 2:30pm ASF meeting 13/11/2016 - 12:30pm to 2:30pm more Jura blog The Case for Anarchism or why Hierarchy should be Abolished Book reviews: Durruti, Utopia, Workers' Control, and The Death Ship Don't vote your life away! Book Review: Wages So Low You'll Freak Sydney Solidarity Network victory in Leichhardt Provisional Anarchist Federation Australia formed Reclaim Ignorance Rally April 4th More New books Latest new titles....and mulit-coloured Slinghots! have arrived!!! 19 hours 8 min ago New books & journal 1 week 19 hours ago New titles at Jura 2 weeks 20 hours ago New titles from PM Press and PiO's anarchist poetry from Melbourne. 1 month 2 weeks ago Heaps of new titles at Jura. 2 months 3 days ago New books this week at Jura 3 months 1 day ago All sorts of new titles 4 months 1 week ago New hard core anarchist readings at Jura. 5 months 4 days ago New books 5 months 1 week ago Non violence & the pacific road at Jura 5 months 3 weeks ago more SydSol - past, future? Open meeting Saturday, October 15, 2016 - 3:00pm to 5:00pmSydney Solidarity Network has been a bit quiet since their victory at a Leichhardt café in April, but they're keen to get active again. Can you help? All SydSol supporters are welcome to an informal catch-up to discuss recent actions and future activities of SydSol. Meet in Camperdown park at 3pm on Saturday 15th (corner of the park near the Courthouse Hotel). Afterwards or in case of bad weather, head to the Courthouse.

» Read more about SydSol - past, future? Open meeting ASF meeting Sunday, October 16, 2016 - 12:30pm to 2:30pmThe Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation Sydney aims to engage with the working class to promote, encourage and facilitate Anarcho-Syndicalist organisation in the Sydney area with the ultimate goal of creating a society based on liberty, mutual aid, federalism and self-management with solidarity to all oppressed.

ASF meets monthly at Jura. Next meetings: 12:30pm Sunday 16th Oct and 13th Nov

» Read more about ASF meeting The Case for Anarchism or why Hierarchy should be Abolished Submitted by Drewy on Sun, 07/08/2016 - 8:45pm This short work outlines the current state of society, the structure of that state, and the dialectic of hierarchy and anti-hierarchy and the conclusion of said dialectic.

When you look at society today, what do you see? You see workers and business owners, citizens and policepeople, policepeople and commanders, citizens and government, soldiers and officers, agents and agencies, renters and property owners, users and intellectual property owners, and so on. How did these relationships materialise? Quite simply, "primitive communism" led to warring tribes, with territories expanding, and stronger members of tribes oppressing others. Following the invention of farming and stronger weaponry, these tribes had a revolution, with the creation of the hierarchy of feudalism. The king ruled supreme, with the knights and lords and peasants all in hierarchical subordination. After a while, the bourgeoisie toppled the feudal hierarchies of the world creating their own hierarchy - haute bourgeoisie, state, petty bourgeoisie, proletarian. This bourgeois hierarchy has been in effect for roughly 200 years and continues in this class subordination.

» Read more about The Case for Anarchism or why Hierarchy should be Abolished Drewy's blog Book reviews: Durruti, Utopia, Workers' Control, and The Death Ship Submitted by Sid on Fri, 29/07/2016 - 9:30pm

The Man Who Killed Durruti, by Pedro de Paz

Why worry about an man who died in November 1936, or about the man who killed him? Perhaps the more important question is 'who is Durruti and why be concerned about him?'. In this intriguing book both of the questions are addressed in two parts. The first is an investigative historical novel about the death of Buenaventura Durruti, in the form of a detective novel that leads to a conclusion about his killer. This section of the book won the 2003 Spanish Jose Saramago International Short Novel Award. The second part is a more straight historical account of Durruti, his actions and ideas, during the Spanish Revolution, and is by Stuart Christie. This second part covers more about Durruti as a person, a militant anarchist worker, an anarchist militia leader, and, overall, a partisan of the Spanish people with an internationalist vision. His death was a turning point in the Spanish Revolution and one of the events that lead to the defeat of the revolution. Half a million people turned out for his funeral in Barcelona, a tribute to the place he held in people's hearts.

The Anthropology of Utiopia: Essays on Social Ecology and Community Development, by Dan Chodorkoff

This is an interesting book which is a collection of essays that have been printed in various places over the years. What brings them together is a series of important themes: an exposition of the work and ideas of Murray Bookchin, examples of how some of Bookchin's ideas have already (and can be now and in the future) be put into practice, the importance of action to (re-) build community as part of the long term revolutionary project and a defense of Bookchin against the poorly thought-out ideological assaults of his post-modern/'post-anarchist' attackers. All this is wrapped in a major theme of looking at ourselves anthropologically. The parts that I liked the most were about Chodorkoff's and a participant and activist in the Lower East Side of New York, in helping to build community among poor Puerto Ricans in what was then a desolate part of New York. Also, how an academic can support and be a part of change, although admittedly he did this when in the Institute for Social Ecology - a radical/anarchist institute if ever there was one. So many lessons to learn, both positive and challenging, that I've got notes scribbled all over the copy that I read. Well worth getting into.

Ours to Master and to Own: Workers' Control from the Commune to the Present, Edited by Immanuel Ness and Dario Azzellini

This book is so inspiring and so annoying in so many ways! The various authors come from widely different backgrounds in terms of work, geographic and cultural location, and ideology. The best aspect is that many examples of attempts at workers' control are covered, from all over the world, although with a less than needed entries from non-European (and its offshoots) areas. So it's a rollikin' read going from workers' revolt to insurrectionary event to factory takeover, and is enjoyable if you don't look too closely into the ideological limitations and biases of many of the authors. So many are just stuck in the nonsense of marxist apologia, here is one example from a look at Russia, 1917-1920: "Some anarchist called for the takeover of factories, but a Bolshevik delegate replied: "control is not yet socialism, nor even taking of production into our hands....Having taken power into our hands, we should direct capitalism along a path such that it will outlive itself..." But no where, in this chapter, in a book about Workers' Control, is there the obvious critique of this marxist nonsense: if marxism is about 'directing capitalism' then it is not revolutionary, and certainly not about workers' control. One look at Simon Pirani's book The Russian Revolution in Retreat, 1920-1924: Soviet Workers and the new Communist Elite, should dispel the illusions that some of these authors have. So, if a reader can keep the rose coloured glasses off, and look critically at its limitations, then the book is a good read.

The Death Ship, by B. Traven

Traven, not his real name (which was possibly Ret Marut) was a mystery man who shunned fame and notoriety. He always insisted that his work should stand alone and be judged for what it was worth. This novel, his first after escape from his activities during the post WW1 Bavarian German Revolution of 1919, was probably a part biography of his experiences in the deep and dark holds of cargo ships. While the story itself is a great read, like all his other novels, the politics underlying the narrative is not hidden, but not always explicit. He attacked rampant authoritarianism in the form of the state, the boss, the military, religion, and any other of its manifestations that came across his path, or the paths that developed in his stories. Having read it 30 years ago and again recently, I thoroughly enjoyed his writing style and the pace of the action, while giving cause and pause for thinking of the meanings within. An easy read, but a provocative and stimulating one. Am now looking forward to re-reading The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which was made into a great film with Humphrey Bogart.

» Read more about Book reviews: Durruti, Utopia, Workers' Control, and The Death Ship Sid's blog Opening hours Thurs: 2-7pmFri: 2-7pmSat: 12-5pmSun: 12-5pm

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Address: 440 Parramatta Rd, Petersham, Sydney, Australia. | Phone: 9550 9931 | Email: Jura[at]Jura.org.au