£16.00

Outstanding

This is such a great book. For the time I was reading it I felt I like I was living in late 1800s Italy, running around with the anarchists there. Pernicone examines in depth the history of the Italian movement, from the arrival of Bakunin in Italy to the founding of the Italian Socialist Party excluding the anarchists. Within the book, he clearly demonstrates the, at times, exceptional level of influence the anarchists had in Italy, the problems they faced in organisation (some rejecting organisation entirely and preferring terrorism) and there are clear links between the issues anarchists faced then and the present. Notable strengths of the book are the charting of: the shift in Italian anarchism from collectivism to communism; the application of insurrectionary tactics; relations with socialists and the ways in which they dealt with defections of high profile members from their ranks. The coverage of the Banda Del Matese, an armed revolutionary group who took to the countryside to instigate revolution amongst the peasants, was outstanding. I actually found it quite funny when the anarchists seemed to get a bit too excited, started a revolutionary band, went to villages but didn’t really get all that far. In all an amazing book that has this reviewer’s highest recommendation.

Anonymous :: 23 May 2010, 09:27