Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.

Start by marking “Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!” as Want to Read:

Other editions

Enlarge cover

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Open Preview

Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!

Fredy Perlman

4.16 · Rating details · 365 ratings · 50 reviews

Against His-Story, Against Leviathan! is a 1983 book by Fredy Perlman, for which he is best known. It is a personal critical perspective on contemporary civilization and society. The work defined anarcho-primitivism for the first time, and was a major source of inspiration for anti-civilization perspectives in contemporary anarchism, most notably on the thought of philosop ...more

Get A Copy

Paperback, 302 pages

Published January 1st 2002 by Black & Red (first published 1983)

More Details... Edit Details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!, please sign up.

Be the first to ask a question about Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!

Lists with This Book

Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman

Anarchist books

417 books — 338 voters

The Lightning and the Sun by Savitri Devi

Apocalypse Culture

99 books — 5 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

Showing 1-30

Average rating 4.16 ·

Rating details

· 365 ratings · 50 reviews

More filters

Sort order

Start your review of Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!

Apr 14, 2008 Dylan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

This is likely the only historical survey of western civilization that I'll ever read with genuine excitement and interest, and my most naive wish after reading it was that it could become a standard introductory text for students of world history.

It goes without saying that Perlman's essay is not "objective". In other words, it is no candidate for perpetuating the business of progress, which is the unspoken agenda of "objectivity". This account of His-Story is openly disparaging of the He's whi This is likely the only historical survey of western civilization that I'll ever read with genuine excitement and interest, and my most naive wish after reading it was that it could become a standard introductory text for students of world history.

It goes without saying that Perlman's essay is not "objective". In other words, it is no candidate for perpetuating the business of progress, which is the unspoken agenda of "objectivity". This account of His-Story is openly disparaging of the He's which constitute and write it as well as the Leviathans which they run. It is an account that is zealously life-affirmative. And it is written in conscious contrast to the libraries of historical literature that demean life and freedom by glorifying the abstract, artificial constructs of Progress, Civilization, and production.

Some readers might find the author's linguistic liberties and central analogy peculiar, but they are critical devices for shifting the reader's perspective outside the historical narratives we're accustomed to learning. He uses "Levaithan" prominently as a synonym for the state and civilization and "zek" (actual slang from The Gulag Archipelago for inmates in Soviet labor camps) for worker, slave, or proletarian. The Leviathan is depicted visually as a monstrous mechanical worm and conceptually as Thomas Hobbes's formulation of the state as a head (the king) and a body (the citizens), all zeks--human beings incorporated into the beast.

Compared to the somber prose of Frederick W. Turner's equally critical Beyond Geography, Perlman's is straightforward yet full of passion. Turner's style suits his tragic work, while Perlman wrote what feels like an unfinished hero story, the hero, Ahura Mazda, the light, life, community, and freedom struggling against Ahriman, darkness, death, hatred, and enslavement. This history is no uninformed polemic; it is a thorough, exhaustive, informative polemic that spans from the origin of the species to the present, looking forward to the end of Leviathan and the return of the light.

Despite my wish, although it is as valid as any standard account, I know that this book or one like it could never be accepted as a valid account of history anywhere Leviathan functions, which, at present, is the whole planet. If this account of history became widely accepted, Leviathan would face its end.

Check out the first chapter here ...more

flag 16 likes · Like · see review

Jan 28, 2009 =====D rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, impracticalities, history

Don’t be misled by the poetic and mythologizing tone with which Fredy Perlman renders his epic Against His-Story, Against Leviathan! This is an exhaustively researched book. It is also profoundly philosophical, asking questions and suggesting answers you won’t find anywhere else. The fact that it is beautifully written in an accessible manner is highly appropriate to its message, as you will see below. The book’s style is very much the opposite of dry scientific writing. I think if readers have ...more

flag 7 likes · Like · see review

Dec 19, 2008 Aonarán rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-more-than-once

I'd been told by a lot of close friends with good book tastes that I should definitely read this at some point, and had tried two or three times before but couldn't get past the first few pages (Perlman quotes yeats and blake and all these other poets, and try as I might throughout the years I've never really been able to understand most poetry). So I just skipped the first three pages worth of poems, and got into it pretty fast.

Perlman does get a little heavey into the-world-was-a-wonderful-uto I'd been told by a lot of close friends with good book tastes that I should definitely read this at some point, and had tried two or three times before but couldn't get past the first few pages (Perlman quotes yeats and blake and all these other poets, and try as I might throughout the years I've never really been able to understand most poetry). So I just skipped the first three pages worth of poems, and got into it pretty fast.

Perlman does get a little heavey into the-world-was-a-wonderful-utopia-before-civilzation talk every now and again and his willingness to get so far into the back-when-women-healers-were-in-charge-everything-was-perfect gets a little obnoxious from time to time too - not to mention surprising coming from someone so into situationist ideas, like the totality.

About 1/3 to 1/2 through the book it gets kind of repetitive and formulaic, but if you can make it to about half way when the vikings, frankish knights and muslim merchants are all twisted together, it gets pretty sweet.

This book also talked about some concepts in a way I'd never thought of before and was surprised by that. For example, Perlman talks about until Rome, most deity-based states actually believed in their gods, something I'm not 100% in agreement with, but the idea of it does make me think. He also says that until the Frankish Knights most Europeans were not interested in commerce, that exchanging surplus (commodities) was only really done in terms of pillaging and plundering - in the form of spoils - and that rulers may enslave people to the fields, but the thought of making them work hard enough to produce an abundance of something like cloth is something one would only do to one's enemies. I would just never think of history in those terms.

It really is an amazing step by step narrative of the birth and development of civilization, written back before this sort of story was so over-told and cliche. Perlman also does a wonderful job talking about some of the more complex situationist ideas in a real down to earth, understandable way. ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Dec 16, 2018 Dave rated it liked it

This book is considered a "must read" by most anarcho-primitivists, and it's not hard to see why. Before you even open it up, it's got a very indie/anti-corporate/punk rock look to it. The writing itself is focused almost entirely on rebellion against authority. He also romanticizes indigenous cultures and oversimplifies the history, basically just telling his audience what they want to hear. The general theme isn't bad but even when I agree with his messages I feel like they're being presented This book is considered a "must read" by most anarcho-primitivists, and it's not hard to see why. Before you even open it up, it's got a very indie/anti-corporate/punk rock look to it. The writing itself is focused almost entirely on rebellion against authority. He also romanticizes indigenous cultures and oversimplifies the history, basically just telling his audience what they want to hear. The general theme isn't bad but even when I agree with his messages I feel like they're being presented in misleading ways. When he talks about the possible reasons why Native Americans were more successful at keeping "leviathan" at bay than the Eurasians were, he focuses on cultural issues. There actually are better explanations though, like the things Jared Diamond discusses in Guns, Germs and Steel: the advantage Eastern empires had in spreading east and west through similar climates and environments, as opposed to the north and south orientation in central America, as well as easier animals to domesticate and probably some other resource advantages as well. He makes it clear himself that "heathens" in Europe resisted civilization as long as they could. Those people had similar beliefs to Native American cultures so it doesn't really make much sense for him to come to that conclusion. The message is still okay, the idea that cultures can be designed to be more resistant to exploitation and to growing into leviathans themselves, but it's not presented very well. James C. Scott's work on that subject is a lot more interesting.

He tries cramming so much into this book that a lot of it reads more like a list. It actually gets pretty tedious. Yet it still feels kind of obscure and poetic rather than scholarly. I don't remember seeing a single date in the entire thing. When I first started reading it, I thought it might read more like a religious text, like he was trying to imagine how an elder of a future tribe of surviving humans would pass on the history through word of mouth, and in a way that people who've never seen a computer screen or modern textbook could understand, leaving out trivial details and focusing only on themes. Had he done that I might have actually liked it more than I did. It'd be interesting to think how the general understandings of the cosmos, evolution, ecology, human history, etc. could be somewhat preserved in a simplified story like that. If a new religion was designed by modern scientists, what would their warnings and commandments be? In my opinion, something like that would have worked better for this sort of flowery, metaphorical writing style.

It's understandable why so many radicals love this book. There really isn't much else out there for primitivists to choose from. The vast majority of environmental books, even pretty good ones, chicken out when they get to the conclusion, basically telling us to just vote democrat and buy solar panels. It's always a relief to find writers like Derrick Jensen, John Zerzan and Fredy Perlman, as flawed as they may be in their own ways, since they at least admit that the root of the problem is deeper than modern capitalism. A few years ago, I actually got sick of trying to find new books I could agree with and decided to try writing my own ( http://aproposalforprimitivism.blogsp... ). Even though Perlman is one of a small handful of truly primitivist writers, I still can't really give this a good review because it's so overly romanticized, full of questionable history and so lacking in useful solutions. It really bothers me that so many people spend their time reading stuff like this. And especially praising stuff like this! Since it does at least criticize the things that everyone else tends to glorify it's kind of hard to hate it but I honestly can't say that I recommend it either. There's just not much here that's actually useful. ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Dec 11, 2020 Hank Chill rated it did not like it

i’d burn this book

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Sep 14, 2018 Bart Everson rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: radicals, anarchists, historians, earth-loving pagans, indigenous activists

A radical history of civilization. Basically, he's against it. No spoiler, that: it's right there in the title. For what is history, as we usually think of it, as we're usually taught it, if not a patriarchal story of conquest and domination in service of empire building? This author makes the case that most everything we laughingly call "civilization" is in fact systematized oppression of humanity and ecological rape of Mother Earth.

It's bracing worldview, to say the least. I think it's just r A radical history of civilization. Basically, he's against it. No spoiler, that: it's right there in the title. For what is history, as we usually think of it, as we're usually taught it, if not a patriarchal story of conquest and domination in service of empire building? This author makes the case that most everything we laughingly call "civilization" is in fact systematized oppression of humanity and ecological rape of Mother Earth.

It's bracing worldview, to say the least. I think it's just relatable enough that most people — those who aren't blinded by allegiances to nation-state or religion or ideology — would agree with the basic premise. Most people would agree, that is, if we stopped to question the fundamental premises of the society in which we live. Reading the book makes me realize just how rare it is to hear this perspective so consistently and unwaveringly spelled out, page after page, century after century.

This book is highly idiosyncratic, to say the least. It's unlike any history I've ever read. (That's because it's not a history, check the title!) The author starts in ancient Sumeria and takes us all the way to Marxist revolutionaries in the course of just 300 pages, as a more or less continuous narrative. He uses quirky terminology, employs unique metaphors, and never cites a single year. It's not an academic text per se, which I'm sure is a point of pride, but neither is it an easy read. (Personally I would have appreciated some chapter headings. An index would have been nice. How about a bibliography? Nope, there's not a single citation.) Nevertheless it's a very scholarly work, in the sense that Perlman is clearly well-read and possessed of an encyclopedic knowledge of human history. More importantly, perhaps, he has heart. The text demonstrates great empathy for the human condition and respect for those who resist oppressive systems.

I found this book hugely compelling and affecting in a way that is difficult to overstate. It has truly transformed my understanding of the world. At the end, I find myself questioning so much of what I have held to be valuable about civilization. It's a lot to assimilate. I'm not even saying I buy it all, at least not just yet, but he makes a powerful case. I've got to ponder it a while longer. ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Nov 16, 2008 Jay rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

if you want to understand the "splinter in your mind"---this is the red pill. ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Jun 14, 2019 Benjamin Fasching-Gray rated it it was ok

Shelves: resistance

You aren’t going to convince people like Fukuyama with this ranty screed. Jumping to conclusions as a way to show how the enemies of freedom — whatever that means — are also jumping to conclusions doesn’t impress me. Maybe in 1983 when this was written and we are on the brink of nuclear war because the greedheads were so ideological, maybe then but in the meantime I am sure there are better histories out there, more liberatory, more feminist, and definitely more accurate. I also have to say ther You aren’t going to convince people like Fukuyama with this ranty screed. Jumping to conclusions as a way to show how the enemies of freedom — whatever that means — are also jumping to conclusions doesn’t impress me. Maybe in 1983 when this was written and we are on the brink of nuclear war because the greedheads were so ideological, maybe then but in the meantime I am sure there are better histories out there, more liberatory, more feminist, and definitely more accurate. I also have to say there were more than a few points where the book just bored me. The author thinks he is being so shocking! But again, I think in the intervening years the idea, for example, that Eurocentric worldviews are a cul de sac, that the colonized were the civilized people and the colonizers were barbaric, etc, etc, not so new... As for whether the peoples you meet in classic anthropological ethnographies are “in a state of nature” or live in “the Golden age” ... there are certainly more detailed and considered analyses for a variety of conclusions beyond the “noble savage” vs “nasty, brutish and short” crap we’ve been arguing back and forth for hundreds of years.

Frustrating. Frustrating to slog through 6000 years of bad news, and frustrating to get it all from the kind of guy one suspects is critical of any victory short of we all head into the woods and learn how to forage.

Yet at the same time he imagines that every new nationalist movement and every new religious movement and every peasant uprising is at least initially on the side of goodness and light — he actually references Zoroastrian names for goodness and light — and I find that a bit dangerous. I see where he’s coming from, but I also see how the alt-right and old school fascists could run with that idea in the wrong direction, even if the author makes it clear that these movements fail when they become Leviathans themselves. Couple that with his Worm and Octopus metaphors and it starts to feel on the edge of antisemitism or only a few degrees away from David Icke and InfoWars. Then he goes off for a few pages on Cohn, the author of books about Millenniarians and other similar uprisings, saying that Cohn is on the side of Leviathan and therefore sees all these uprisings as bad and their visionary leaders as crazy. Well, that’s not how I remember it. Cohn is conservative, sure, but I did think he was sympathetic to these movements in his treatment but he also points out their antisemitism and maybe pushed the idea that fascism has its roots in these same movements. “Against Leviathan” is too quick to dismiss those criticisms and accuses Cohn of making arguments he didn’t make, actually writing, ‘Cohn doesn’t have to say it, because it’s just understood...’ So again, that makes me uncomfortable. There were also references to things I know were hoaxes, like the Lenni Lenape having a written document detailing their journey over the ice bridge.

Claiming that a more scholarly approach is automatically siding with “worldeaters” is just a cop-out, man.

Despite all these things that I didn’t like, there were bits that I did enjoy. It’s like hanging out with a cranky old comrade who is incredibly well read, outspoken and prickly. That can be amusing in small doses. ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Mar 11, 2018 Victor rated it really liked it

Shelves: theory

Such a frustrating work in so many ways. This is a work of impressive erudition and understanding regarding world history and civilization with a particularly strong focus on what laughingly used to be called "Western Civilization." Perlman has written an anarchist polemic, however, not a textbook or even a piece of critical theory, which is fine (I'm an anarchist and I agree with most of his perspectives throughout the essay), but the writing style is less stirring than navel gazing, is filled Such a frustrating work in so many ways. This is a work of impressive erudition and understanding regarding world history and civilization with a particularly strong focus on what laughingly used to be called "Western Civilization." Perlman has written an anarchist polemic, however, not a textbook or even a piece of critical theory, which is fine (I'm an anarchist and I agree with most of his perspectives throughout the essay), but the writing style is less stirring than navel gazing, is filled with somewhat pointless neologisms (even for the era in which it was written), and comes across as a weak attempt at Nietzsche's style in bad English translation more often than not. You should understand, I have a LOT of respect for the ideas in this book as well as for the author, who was a vital activist and publisher for more than a generation, and who published much better written work in his life. Saying this about his most famous work kinda hurts me if I'm being really open here, but it's as kind a public judgment I can express on this book.

This is often thought of as a foundational anarcho-primitivist text, which makes sense, as it's a essentially a long chronological list of the mistakes made in the name of progress from the beginning of his-story (told with a strong dose of Bachtofen-flavored matriarchal spin, filtered through an anti-civilization perspective) through the colonization of the Americas with a strong comparison throughout with the Original Affluent Society, Neolithic hunter-gatherer life. However, this historical perspective also doesn't push any sort of anarcho-primitive praxis in contemporary life like the work of John Zerzan or even Derrick Jensen, for which I, at least, am grateful, as while I agree with the historical and contemporary criticism usually brought by anarcho-primitivist writers, their solutions for the circumstances they so ably describe are generally unrealistic in my opinion. This book has, essentially, none of that and I like it more for its lack of such paper-wasting twaddle.

I also love the narrative of ancient and medieval history and Perlman's consistent focus on the most interesting and liberational movements throughout as well as how they often are recuperated by anti-liberational movements or cultures. There's little depth or individuation to Perlman's narrative of oppositional groups (though he does make a worthwhile effort) and in the earlier sections of the book he mainly focuses on building his narrative of civilizational development as a series of conceptual enclosures and physical exploitations to the overall benefit of the book. There's some iffy scholarship in here, too, mostly to do with Native American materials (anything Barry Fell touches is factually inaccurate no matter how entertaining it might be, y'all), but most of that's covered in other reviews here.

Really, the most disappointing part of reading this for me is that, for me, there's really nothing new here, though Perlman does manage to find and delineate patterns of belief amongst widely different groups that I'm already familiar with. That, combined with the writing style (particularly the annoying neologisms), makes the work as a whole pretty mediocre for me. However, as I was thinking about this review, I also realized that I'm not sure I'm aware of any one book that contains all or even most of the history found here in a single volume, which meant that my review stays at four stars. Despite its flaws, this is a good and worthwhile, if somewhat annoying, read. ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Apr 29, 2020 Laszlo Szerdahelyi rated it it was ok

Shelves: pol

I get what Perlman was trying to do here, history is problematic, those who wrote it even more so, men, white men, bloodthirsty empire worshipping men most of the time who saw everything through the lense of the Leviathan i.e the state, the king, the leader. I also appreciate his poetic approach, as whimsical and confusing his prose can get he really does redeem it with some nice displays of lyricism that are welcome, as well as his subjective take on history deserves its praise for its playful, I get what Perlman was trying to do here, history is problematic, those who wrote it even more so, men, white men, bloodthirsty empire worshipping men most of the time who saw everything through the lense of the Leviathan i.e the state, the king, the leader. I also appreciate his poetic approach, as whimsical and confusing his prose can get he really does redeem it with some nice displays of lyricism that are welcome, as well as his subjective take on history deserves its praise for its playful, alternative, almost sci-fi, historiography that eschews the classical blunt, raw, scientific style of writing using what Perlman derides as ''positive evidence'' and takes a more winding, personal road.

I had a one up on the first 100 pages or so because i'm a history buff so the heavily crammed references to ancient people's like Assyrians or Chaldeans or Medes or places like Elam and Schythia were not that tough , though i can see scores of people ditching the book after the first pages just because of the overbearing way of unloading so much history of people's and events in such an erratic way, it's not like history is complicated as it is, Perlman's dreamy connections between people's and wild, almost comical, speculations (sth.sth. Marco Polo stealing ravioli from China) make for a sludgey labyrinth.

I feel like this was an opportunity missed that could have take another path than the infantile, rage filled diatribe about the horror of hierarchy, state, civilization and technology that this books is. What could have been a fresh, poetic take on approaching history, perhaps retelling from HER-story since Perlman brings up, and rightfully so, the male-centric historiography, becomes a sort of ranting, raving, bohemian outburst of fetishization of Mother Earth of indigenous people of pre-technological civilizations that honestly made me sick to my stomach. Potential was also lost in fusing the different fields of social sciences, poetry, history, biology and so on to retell the story of mankind in a critical but playful and redeeming way. Instead, Perlman jumps around from Yeats to Clastres to Solzhenytsin to Turner, with occasional name dropings of works or authors which moments vary from interesting to ''Excuse me?''.

I really tried to find more to suck from the marrow of this book but It's infantile in a way that's obnoxious and dreamy in a way that makes you get hit by a tram dreamy, not, getting lost in a neighbourhood you've never been in before because you day dreamed about life dreamy. Add to it it's anarcho-primtivist leanings, which, aside its relevant critiques of technology, agriculture etc. at this point is about as bankrupt as a serious ideological approach to organizing society as is Posadism's communist aliens.

More so, it's Perlman's flowery fetishization of pre-industrial and indigenous people, or those who lived outside of the confined of state-run societies that grind my gears, I can smell the bong water and psychedelic 10 hour mix playing in a loop with a Che Guevarra banner on the wall with shelfs packing travel guides to Bhutan and self-help books collections. Not to mention it's inherent saviour complex issues, is overall very problematic and disappointing.

Better off reading Murray Bookchin's 'Ecology of Freedom' or looking up anthropologists like James C. Scott or Pierre Clastres for more interesting and better founded approaches to what Perlman was trying to articulate. ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Jan 17, 2018 Tommy rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction, anarchy

An odd overview of world history that doesn't take into consideration that primitives might not all have been nice people. It may initially come off as just another addition into the "all white men are racist" variety of historiography but there's a lot more worth criticizing here. This is definitely on the ground floor of the emerging hegemonic anti-civilizational pro-ethnic tribalism narrative. ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Oct 05, 2008 Ryan Mishap rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history, anarchy

This anthropological/historical breakdown of Leviathan (power, control) is unique and amazing. Anarchist writing at its best.

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Apr 04, 2012 wombat rated it really liked it

It took me a year and a half but I finally finished Against His-Story!! Now I need to re-read it 3 times or so.

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Nov 26, 2017 Amy rated it it was amazing

Seriously one of the most amazing books I’ve ever read. Big ideas and an essential read for a critical take on human history.

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Feb 11, 2021 Scott rated it did not like it

Shelves: nonfiction, philosophy, hist-general

"And so the problem remained; lots of people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.
Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans."
--Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

Round about the three quarters mark, Fredy Perlman states that he's sick of writing this book an ...more

flag Like · see review

Jul 12, 2020 Ash added it

Shelves: nonfiction

An anti-history that reads like it's being told to you by some weird guy you met at a party, who won't stop talking until the sun rises, who speaks without taking a breath. How much of it actually gets into your head is unclear, but something has. Something has changed in how you look at the world and how we got here. In lieu of trying to talk about this any further, I'll just post the excerpt that convinced me to read it in the first place:

The final destruction of Carthage has no precedent in t

...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Feb 28, 2021 fridayas rated it really liked it

imma just put the quotes here cuz the feelings i have towards this book are hard to explain. i would give it five stars if only it didn't literally shatter some of the core beliefs i had. it really made more sense on the second read. anyways, what a book.

"Levithan has neither life nor soul. I ti is that it is. İt is its own sole goal. It is Death, unmitigated, unjustified, unexplained."

"Yet how many pages will be devoted to the greatness of Rome! And how many pages to the technological ingenuit ...more

flag Like · see review

Jul 10, 2017 Evelyn R rated it it was ok

Unfortunate disappointment. Still has a few solid ideas mixed into the dross, but I had a few huge issues:

1. A fetishization of purity and wholeness that never existed and cannot exist
2. Maternal metaphors for nature that align neatly with #1 and that are often used in a patronizing and Romantic way.
3. Central metaphors of Leviathan, etc., never really move beyond misty abstractions that make for engaging poetry here and there but don't succeed in making the point he wants to.

Read Haraway, read ...more

flag Like · see review

May 05, 2019 Andrea Mastromatteo rated it really liked it

I only give this book 4 stars because not everyone appreciates looking up so many references. In my mind an alternative title could be "A People's History of The Occident and Middle East" It is truly enlightening, and will leave you hungry for more knowledgeable about past peoples, empires, & the origins of what we misguidedly call Western Civilization. ...more

flag Like · see review

Oct 17, 2020 Victor Desario rated it really liked it

Really wanted to give this five stars, but can't wrap my head around some of Perlman's most important premises, particularly the absolute idealization of the natural in contrast with the corrupt (bordering on noble savage). Still a stunning alternative view of civilization and world history as a regression rather than a progression. ...more

flag Like · see review

Jan 01, 2021 Josh rated it did not like it

If Ted Kaczynski was much, much dumber and liked David Thoreau. Earnestly thinking that being in a hunter-gatherer society lets you be free from work so you can focus on the self doesn't make you an anprim, it makes you a dumbass. ...more

flag Like · see review

Mar 18, 2018 theodora rated it it was amazing

A poetic anti-history, horrific at times, but offering an alternative mythos for our despondent world.

flag Like · see review

Jan 13, 2020 Matthew Read rated it it was amazing

A very interesting take on everything you thought you knew about history.

flag Like · see review

May 22, 2020 Aaron rated it really liked it

Deep history with poetic and philosophic sensitivity. A true epic of anarchist thought. Maybe a bit too primitivist.

flag Like · see review

Apr 24, 2020 Melondrop rated it it was amazing

What can I say? This is one of the books that I’ll remember as having changed my life. That I was waiting for. I know I’ll come back to it again and again, I’ve already referenced it so many times. The undead carcass is more visible to me now, more nameable, more tangible than it ever was before Fredy Perlman gave me the language I needed to feel its tendrils around me, described its body. Described us all as the animators within it. That resonates with something so deep inside of me.

flag Like · see review

Jan 27, 2008 Shaun added it

Most of the time I was reading this, I felt like I was just pulling myself through the text because I had told myself that I would finish it. By the time I did finish it, I didn't regret the time spent - but I put it down twice as I succumbed to the allure of books with more immediate intrigue (actually I put it down the first time almost nine years ago). Overall this was a haunting essay, but one that I at least appreciated for it's voice.

I've been trying to wrap my head around Perlman's text f Most of the time I was reading this, I felt like I was just pulling myself through the text because I had told myself that I would finish it. By the time I did finish it, I didn't regret the time spent - but I put it down twice as I succumbed to the allure of books with more immediate intrigue (actually I put it down the first time almost nine years ago). Overall this was a haunting essay, but one that I at least appreciated for it's voice.

I've been trying to wrap my head around Perlman's text for awhile, while immersed in it and in the aftermath of finishing it. The book's major failing for me is that it gives one the feeling you might get from reading a phonebook: a continual stream of names and references with very little context except within assumed relation to each other by categorization (alphabetization or, in the case of AHAL, chronology). Rather than ebb and flow with revelations, key points, rehashing of original points to create a flow, and maybe an illustrative anecdote here or there, AHAL is kind of like riding a slow rollercoaster down a continual grade with the brakes on. It's slow going, and when Perlman does hit the nail, the experience is almost buried in a mulch largely generated from his own metaphorical vernacular. It has been suggested that perhaps the bulk of the book wasn't accessible to me because I lack a particular education in older civilizations, which is fairly true. This could explain why the tail end of the book picked up a little bit for me - maybe I just understood the references better as the book approached the last 300 years or so.

Perlman pulls out a lot of questions early on about the very nature of what we assume to be the intentions or lives of past peoples through our current framework of (Civilization-justifying) historiography and (grave-robbing) archaeology - and this is still my favorite part of the whole text. Despite feeling like I was dragging myself through the book much of the time, what I enjoyed about AHAL is that it IS different from the relatively focused, anecdotal history I usually read, where microcosmic stories are told that extrapolate upon much more epic themes - AHAL, in simple terms, is the opposite. History is shared in many different ways, and a river of facts and relational information is only one way of history-telling (usually the other ways get dismissed as Mythology). In AHAL, Perlman tells the history of the slow grind of civilization as a weird, partially metaphorical rant, wherein a faceless, emotionless tide of ancient names with redundantly greedy (but very occasionally not) motivations drives his point home to the reader in a style that I can only assume was fueled by his intense passion. My guess is that Perlman was talking about the most horrible of monsters in as calm a manner as he may have been able to. If his intended follow-up to this book had ever been finished, I would tackle it. ...more

flag Like · see review

Oct 11, 2015 UNMENSCH rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorite-books, display, favorites

One of those books that completely changes the way you conceptualize things, in this case the narrative of western civilization and progress which completely pervades our understanding of ourselves and our time. Perlman moves in a linear fashion through western history, beginning with the Sumerians and finishing with the eradication of the last free peoples in the Americas. Throughout, the focus is on the development of the monstrous Leviathan, which Perlman figures for civilization (after Hobbe ...more

flag Like · see review

Apr 26, 2011 Lyle rated it liked it

The book unfolded for me in three distinct sections. First, the author examines concepts of wilderness, freedom, and existing in a "state of nature". He asserts definitions for these which gave me pause and made me examine my own notions about these concepts, and I arrived at different definitions than he did. So far so good; the best type of disagreement is the kind that prompts you to discover more about your own ideas. The book goes on to introduce the overriding metaphor which will frame the ...more

flag Like · see review

May 25, 2007 Sarkastodon rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: most intelligent people

Perlman retells history in terms of Hobbesian "leviathan," beginning in acient Sumer, going into serious detail about the various forms of assimilation of cultures into these Leviathans (e.g. nearly every ancient civilization you can think of, from the Hittites, Phoenecians, Assyrians, etc. through the Scythians, Romans, Arabs, etc.). Particular focus is on various outcast, maroon and pirate utopia societies which existed outside the domain of certain leviathans and governmental orders (e.g. the ...more

flag Like · see review

Dec 09, 2014 Zac rated it really liked it

Written only a couple of years before Fredy Perlman’s death, ‘Against His-story…’ provides a simple account of the rise and fall of civilisations from the beginnings of recorded history until around the mid-19th century. With every new culture that emerges, something familiar (e.g. institutions, religion, art) appears in the world until we more or less end up with something resembling our current state. The whole narrative unfolds with a simplicity and logic that is quite tragic. However Perlman ...more

flag Like · see review

« previous 1 2 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend It | Stats | Recent Status Updates

Readers also enjoyed

See similar books…

Genres

History

30 users

Politics

22 users

Philosophy

20 users

Nonfiction

15 users

Anarchism

6 users

Anthropology

4 users

Culture > Society

3 users

Religion

3 users

Philosophy > Theory

3 users

Reference

2 users

See top shelves…

About Fredy Perlman

Fredy Perlman

37 followers

Fredy Perlman (August 20, 1934 – July 26, 1985) was an author and publisher. His most popular work, the book Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!, is a major source of inspiration for anti-civilisation perspectives in contemporary anarchism.

Childhood and youth

Perlman was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia. He emigrated with parents to Cochabamba, Bolivia in 1938 just ahead of the Nazi takeover. The Pe Fredy Perlman (August 20, 1934 – July 26, 1985) was an author and publisher. His most popular work, the book Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!, is a major source of inspiration for anti-civilisation perspectives in contemporary anarchism.

Childhood and youth

Perlman was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia. He emigrated with parents to Cochabamba, Bolivia in 1938 just ahead of the Nazi takeover. The Perlman family came to the United States in 1945 and finally settled in Lakeside Park, Kentucky.

In 1952 he attended Morehead State College in Kentucky and then UCLA from 1953-55. Perlman was on the staff of The Daily Bruin, the school newspaper, when the university administration changed the constitution of the newspaper to forbid it from nominating its own editors, as the custom had been. Perlman left the newspaper staff at that time and, with four others, proceeded to publish an independent paper, The Observer, which they handed out on a public sidewalk at the campus bus stop, since they were forbidden by the administration to distribute in on the campus. {Source: Loud Bark and Curious Eyes, by George Garrigues at [2]).

In 1956-59 he attended Columbia University, where he met his life-long companion, Lorraine Nybakken. He enrolled as a student of English literature but soon concentrated his efforts in philosophy, political science and European literature. One particularly influential teacher for him at this time was C. Wright Mills.

[edit] Travel and study

In late 1959, Perlman and his wife took a cross-country motor scooter trip, mostly on two-lane highways traveling at 25 miles per hour. From 1959 to 1963, they lived on the lower east side of Manhattan while Perlman worked on a statistical analysis of the world's resources with John Ricklefs. They participated in anti-bomb and pacifist activities with the Living Theatre and others. Perlman was arrested after a sit-down in Times Square in the fall of 1961. He became the printer for the Living Theatre and during that time wrote The New Freedom, Corporate Capitalism and a play, Plunder, which he published himself.

In 1963, the husband and wife left the U.S. and moved to Belgrade, Yugoslavia after living some months in Copenhagen and Paris. Perlman received a master's degree in economics and a PhD at the University of Belgrade's Law School; his dissertation was titled "Conditions for the Development of a Backward Region," which created an outrage among some members of the faculty. During his last year in Yugoslavia, he was a member of the Planning Institute for Kosovo and Metohija.

[edit] Professional life

During 1966-69 the couple lived in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Perlman taught social science courses at Western Michigan University and created outrage among some members of the faculty when he had students run their own classes and grade themselves. During his first year in Kalamazoo, he and Milos Samardzija, one of his professors from Belgrade, translated Isaac Illych Rubin's Essay on Marx's Theory of Value. Perlman wrote an introduction to the book: "An Essay on Commodity Fetishism."

In May 1968, after lecturing for two weeks in Turin, Italy, Perlman went to Paris on the last train before rail traffic was shut down by some of the strikes that were sweeping Western Europe that season. He participated in the May unrest in Paris and worked at the Censier center with the Citroen factory committee. After returning to Kalamazoo in August, he collaborated with Roger Gregoire in writing Worker-Student Action Committees, May 68.

During his last year in Kalamazoo, Perlman had left the university and together with several other people, mostly students, inaugurated the Black and Red magazine, of which six issues appeared. Typing and layout was done at the Perlman house and the printing at the Radical Education Project in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In January 1969 Perlman completed The Reproduction of Daily Life. While traveling in Europe in the spring of 1969 ...more

Books by Fredy Perlman

Worker-Student Action Committees: France, May '68

More…

News & Interviews

The Most Anticipated YA Books of March

As dedicated readers already know, some of the best and most innovative stories on the shelves come from the constantly evolving realm of...

Trivia About Against His-Story...

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Quotes from Against His-Story...

“The darkling plain is here. This is the waste land: England, America, Russia, China, Israel, France....

And we are here as victims, or as spectators, or as perpetrators of tortures, massacres, poisonings, manipulations, despoliation.” — 4 likes

“The Romans learn Art from their Greek slaves, but they learn reluctantly. They are almost Modern in their reluctance; they are almost ready to say that a killing machine is beautiful if it works. They are not quite that modern, and they let Greek craftsmen conceal the brutal militarism with Architecture, Sculpture and Painting. They learn Aesthetics, that strange ability to see in blood gushing from a wound only the beauty of the shape and color.” — 3 likes

More quotes…

See a Problem?

Preview — Against His-Story, Against Leviathan! by Fredy Perlman

Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!

Get A Copy

Friend Reviews

Reader Q&A

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topic
Discuss This Book

Readers also enjoyed

Genres

About Fredy Perlman

Books by Fredy Perlman

News & Interviews

Trivia About Against His-Story...

Quotes from Against His-Story...

See a Problem?

Preview — Against His-Story, Against Leviathan! by Fredy Perlman

Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!

Get A Copy

Friend Reviews

Reader Q&A

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topicDiscuss This Book

Readers also enjoyed

Genres

About Fredy Perlman

Books by Fredy Perlman

News & Interviews

Trivia About Against His-Story...

Quotes from Against His-Story...

new topic
Discuss This Book