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Free Comrades: Anarchism and Homosexuality in the United States 1895-1917
By investigating public records, journals, and books published between 1895 and 1917, Terence Kissack expands the scope of the history of LGBT politics in the United States. The anarchists Kissack examines—such as Emma Goldman, Benjamin Tucker, and Alexander Berkman—defended the right of individuals to pursue same-sex relations, challenging both the sometimes conservative beliefs of their fellow anarchists as well as those outside the movement—police, clergy, and medical authorities—who condemned LGBT people.
In his book, Kissack examines the trial and imprisonment of Oscar Wilde, the life and work of Walt Whitman, periodicals such as Tucker's Liberty and Leonard Abbott's The Free Comrade , and the frank treatment of homosexual relations in Berkman's Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist , By defending the right to enter into same sex partnerships, free from social and governmental restraints, the anarchists posed a challenge to society still not met today.
Terence Kissack is a former Executive Director of San Francisco’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society; he currently serves on the board of the Society. His writings have appeared in Radical History Review and Journal of the History of Sexuality .
In his book, Kissack examines the trial and imprisonment of Oscar Wilde, the life and work of Walt Whitman, periodicals such as Tucker's Liberty and Leonard Abbott's The Free Comrade , and the frank treatment of homosexual relations in Berkman's Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist , By defending the right to enter into same sex partnerships, free from social and governmental restraints, the anarchists posed a challenge to society still not met today.
Terence Kissack is a former Executive Director of San Francisco’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society; he currently serves on the board of the Society. His writings have appeared in Radical History Review and Journal of the History of Sexuality .
220 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2007
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February 20, 2016
I am not in school nor am I an academic. I am an artist. a dancer of 40 years living in an American city having just lived through a touchstone moment of queer history [Obergefell v. Hodges] when I saw this book in a bookstore was compelled to buy it. It sat on a shelf for a year until I finally took it on vacation and cannot believe that it's taken me a year to read this important book!
Some passages read a bit densely from chapter to chapter, but to be fair it's the guys doctoral thesis, I suspect dense is par for the course, no? That said, it's well written and has a good pace. Once past the first couple of pages he had my attention. He finds and keeps a good pace through chapters two and three. Through fewer than 25 pages Kissack deftly acquaints the uninitiated to the details of and perspectives on the trial of Oscar Wilde. One finishes page 68 feeling pretty well informed of not only the social context wherein the so-called "crime" can be named as such but also the melody and verse of the aristarchian refrain. Though he tells us that chapter 5 is about "sexology and the politics of homosexuality" it reads more about Emma Goldman and her perspectives on the topics.
Throughout the book he will broach a theory and begin to substantiated it but then breakaway prematurely without making his point. For example, when questioning the motivation of non-gay audience members' attending Goldman's lectures (p144-145) he spells out a couple of reasons, "But what of those who perhaps had not given homosexuality much thought prior to hearing Goldman speak? Did they attend the lectures for a lark?..." but then within sentences is back on the motivations of, "her audience members [who] seem to have taken an active role in seeking out information about themselves." We never get an explanation of why the non-gays would attend her lectures. Chapter 6 is helpful in understanding the effects of World War I on the nascent homosexual movement in America. Though parts of the chapter are inchoate. For example he builds a narrative based on important details but doesn't contextualize the detail like when he mentions an assumed-new anarchist journal Vanguard after having told the reader repeatedly over several pages of a diminished anarchist press but doesn't tell us where it was situated and who was behind it.
He is well read. A benefit of this well-researched thoroughness is a list of seminal texts to read next. :-)
Some passages read a bit densely from chapter to chapter, but to be fair it's the guys doctoral thesis, I suspect dense is par for the course, no? That said, it's well written and has a good pace. Once past the first couple of pages he had my attention. He finds and keeps a good pace through chapters two and three. Through fewer than 25 pages Kissack deftly acquaints the uninitiated to the details of and perspectives on the trial of Oscar Wilde. One finishes page 68 feeling pretty well informed of not only the social context wherein the so-called "crime" can be named as such but also the melody and verse of the aristarchian refrain. Though he tells us that chapter 5 is about "sexology and the politics of homosexuality" it reads more about Emma Goldman and her perspectives on the topics.
Throughout the book he will broach a theory and begin to substantiated it but then breakaway prematurely without making his point. For example, when questioning the motivation of non-gay audience members' attending Goldman's lectures (p144-145) he spells out a couple of reasons, "But what of those who perhaps had not given homosexuality much thought prior to hearing Goldman speak? Did they attend the lectures for a lark?..." but then within sentences is back on the motivations of, "her audience members [who] seem to have taken an active role in seeking out information about themselves." We never get an explanation of why the non-gays would attend her lectures. Chapter 6 is helpful in understanding the effects of World War I on the nascent homosexual movement in America. Though parts of the chapter are inchoate. For example he builds a narrative based on important details but doesn't contextualize the detail like when he mentions an assumed-new anarchist journal Vanguard after having told the reader repeatedly over several pages of a diminished anarchist press but doesn't tell us where it was situated and who was behind it.
He is well read. A benefit of this well-researched thoroughness is a list of seminal texts to read next. :-)
April 29, 2008
I guess I was expecting something different when I picked up this book.
--Free Comrades came in on my shift at the local infoshop and the person working with me wanted to put this in our anarchism section to add some queer visibility, while I wanted to place it in our understocked queer section. After reading the book, I agree with my co-workers choice but because this book does not belong in a queer section--
Free Comrades deals predominantly with mostly straight anarchists' opinions on homo-sex from the late 19th century to until the United States joined World War I. I found most of the book interesting. Anarchists were among the first straights to forward a pro-homo agenda, which was tied to anti-marriage for all!
Qualms. The writing is somewhat redundant, and at times Terence Kissack seems to read too far into the anarchist documents to find a pro-homo agenda. Also, the subtitle, "Anarchism and Homosexuality," matches the content of the book, but the description "Kissack expands the scope of the history of LGBT politics" is ill-suited. The focus is gay dudes, and lesbians have some presence. While there may have been brief mentions of trans and intersex folks, these accounts do not expand much scope for the groups' histories.
--Free Comrades came in on my shift at the local infoshop and the person working with me wanted to put this in our anarchism section to add some queer visibility, while I wanted to place it in our understocked queer section. After reading the book, I agree with my co-workers choice but because this book does not belong in a queer section--
Free Comrades deals predominantly with mostly straight anarchists' opinions on homo-sex from the late 19th century to until the United States joined World War I. I found most of the book interesting. Anarchists were among the first straights to forward a pro-homo agenda, which was tied to anti-marriage for all!
Qualms. The writing is somewhat redundant, and at times Terence Kissack seems to read too far into the anarchist documents to find a pro-homo agenda. Also, the subtitle, "Anarchism and Homosexuality," matches the content of the book, but the description "Kissack expands the scope of the history of LGBT politics" is ill-suited. The focus is gay dudes, and lesbians have some presence. While there may have been brief mentions of trans and intersex folks, these accounts do not expand much scope for the groups' histories.
August 4, 2021
Full of nice fun facts but a didn't really *say* much?
January 31, 2009
Free Comrades: Anarchism and Homosexuality in the United States, 1895 - 1917
“Through their publications, public lectures, and personal relations, the anarchists acted as conduits for new ideas about human nature and sex. They saw themselves as participants in a transatlantic debate about the moral, ethical, and social place of homosexuality – equal members in an imagined ‘International Institute and Society of Sexology.’ Through their work, anarchists contributed to the remaking of cultural and political representations of homosexuality and to ideas about what role same-sex desires had in the making of the public and the private self.” (151-152)
Terrence Kissack’s Free Comrades is a detailed examination of the anarchist sex-radicals within the United States during the late 19th Century into the early 20th Century. Throughout this same period Western Europe was engaged in international dialogues and debates about same-sex eroticism and relationships. Historically the United States has been said to be absent in these dialogues. Kissack’s book brings out the essential role English-speaking anarchists in the United States played in the larger conversation on homosexuality (or homoeroticsm, intermediate types, homo-sexualists, deviants, fairies, inverts, pederasts, all terms used to describe folks we now use terms like queer, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender for).
If you are looking for some juicy gossip about hot late-night make out sessions between Alexander Berkman and John William Lloyd (as I certainly was) you will be somewhat disappointed as you turn the pages of Free Comrades. It appears that the majority of the anarchist sex radicals enjoyed talking about same-sex eroticism without talking too much or experiencing much, of the sweat, kissing, sucking, touching, tasting, and fucking that, often, goes hand-in-hand with same-sex eroticism. This does not mean Kissack’s writing is not interesting, informative, and essential. It simply means that we need another book, likely a fiction one, including stories of Emma Goldman’s first woman-on-woman anarchist sexual experience.
Kissack boldly states that, “the first sustained US-based consideration of the social, ethical, and cultural place of homosexuality took place within the English-language anarchist movement.”(3) I imagine the current leadership of the racist, classist, transphobic, patriarchal Human Rights Campaign might not want to consider anti-statist, anti-capitalist, revolutionaries as their fore-parents. However, John William Lloyd, Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Leonard Abbott, and Benjamin R. Tucker published and presented many articles, speeches, and books about same-sex eroticism between the 1890’s and 1920’s, well before the Kinsey studies or the homophile movement.
Kissack begins the first chapter by providing some explanation of anarchist politics and values for those who are unfamiliar. While his overview is short and incomplete it provides enough information for liberal queers who may want to learn some of their long-silenced queer history. The differences between individualist and communist anarchists were over-simplified, to a point I think may anger some contemporary anarchist communists. However, his sentence summary of anarchism would make a good introduction to an elevator speech on anarchism, “[T:]he basic principles of self-rule, freedom of individual expression, opposition to hierarchy, and the defense of social and individual dissent were the essential heart of anarchism.”(19) Kissack also details for readers some of the differences between sex radical anarchists such as Emma Goldman and sex negative misogynists such As Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Sex radical anarchists were challenged for “wasting critical resources speaking on topics of secondary importance… the issue of economic injustice was of paramount importance.”(28), not unlike the same debates that happen today around “identity politics”.
The following two chapters focus on Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, and the anarchist response to these two men, their writing, sexuality, and persecution. Both Wilde and Whitman had ongoing friendships and influence in anarchist politics. They each had significant critiques of anarchism and anarchists leading to great criticism of both by some anarchists. Kissack explores the anarchist defense of Wilde and Whitman in numerous ways. Oscar Wilde’s sentence of two years hard labor for committing “acts of gross indecency with men” galvanized significant support from anarchists and forced a conversation of anarchist politics in relationship to homoerotic sex/uality. Public defenses by anarchists such as Lloyd, Goldman, and Tucker depended strongly on the connection of Wilde and Whitman with normative masculine standards of manhood. Lloyd argued that, “same-sex passion is quintessentially manly.”(77) He did so as anarchists and others continuously disparaged “effeminate men and fairies.” Unfortunately the anarchists at the time either did not recognize the misogyny in their negative attitudes toward femme men or did not care that they were perpetuating systems of patriarchy with their actions. Kissack, as the historian, does not bring much of a critical analysis to the anarchists’ dependence on masculine gender-normativity for their defense of actual individuals engaged in homoerotic relationships.
The longest chapter is devoted to “prison and the politics of homosexuality”, primarily focused on Berkman’s Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist. Berkman details his own transition from homophobe when he entered the prison to an advocate for homoerotic relationships by the end of his sentence. He even referred to, “love between inmates as a form of resistance to the spirit-crushing environment of prison.” (102) Kissack suggests that Berkman’s memoirs is, “one of the most important political texts dealing with homosexuality to have been written by an American before the 1950’s.” (102) Early in his memoir Berkman confuses coercive sexual abuse with homosexuality. Later he develops a better understanding of consent, deeply informed by his anarchism, and thus significantly alters his understanding of sexual relationships in prison. To communicate his politics on homosexuality Berkman creates a character, George, with whom he has an extensive conversation, one of the most thorough and detailed positive explorations of homosexuality published at the time. In their conversation Berkman very clearly distinguishes between coercive abuse and consensual homoerotic relationships. He specifically examines age difference, love, and butch/femme (not the language he would use) relationship norms. Unfortunately it appears as though Berkman was not actually sex-positive. He even refers to the prospects of penetrative, oral or anal, sex as “desecrating” another. One is left to wonder if Berkman’s relationships with the two younger prisoners he details actually were as physically platonic as he alleges.
Kissack does have a chapter in which he attempts to make up for leaving out lesbians in the majority of his writing. Unfortunately his attempt is quite weak and is instead somewhat insulting and patriarchal. Certainly patriarchy impacted the anarchists between 1895 and 1917 but I am sure there must be more available for historical review than what Kissack presents to the reader. Kissack does, however, detail a somewhat homoerotic relationship between Goldman and one of her admirers, Almeda Sperry. Sperry had both female and male lovers and deeply longed for a relationship with Goldman. There is some question about whether or not the two of them ever engaged in any physical expressions of intimacy, but their letters provide deeply erotic imagery, especially on the part of Sperry. One has to assume that the majority of the anarchists’ discussion about support of same-sex relationships between men applied equally to women as men.
Free Comrades provides an important examination of a history largely forgotten and/or unknown by both anarchists and the mainstream queer/GLB/trans movements. This book is a reminder to anarchists that we need to honor and celebrate queer/GLB/trans folks in our ranks and struggle to lift those voices up. This book is also a reminder to us that we need to present an alternative to the mainstream gay/lesbian movement especially for queer/GLB/trans young people. As the same-sex marriage movement continues to gain momentum the politics presented in this book give us an outlet to challenge the current priorities of assimilationist gay/lesbian organizations.
The history in this book is far from complete. There is much we need to continue to learn and find out about gender-nonconforming anarchists, lesbians, and other queers of any gender. While there is much to learn from these sex radical anarchists we also need to challenge a great deal of their sexual politics. Sex is nothing for us to be ashamed of. As a queer anarchist I want to see my sexuality validated as something more than just a really great friendship. Until recently when I had sex with my lover I was committing an act of civil disobedience. Our contemporary sex radicalism needs to include a little more sex in it. Take some time, read this book, and let us learn from the past so we can create something better for today.
~Jason Lydon
“Through their publications, public lectures, and personal relations, the anarchists acted as conduits for new ideas about human nature and sex. They saw themselves as participants in a transatlantic debate about the moral, ethical, and social place of homosexuality – equal members in an imagined ‘International Institute and Society of Sexology.’ Through their work, anarchists contributed to the remaking of cultural and political representations of homosexuality and to ideas about what role same-sex desires had in the making of the public and the private self.” (151-152)
Terrence Kissack’s Free Comrades is a detailed examination of the anarchist sex-radicals within the United States during the late 19th Century into the early 20th Century. Throughout this same period Western Europe was engaged in international dialogues and debates about same-sex eroticism and relationships. Historically the United States has been said to be absent in these dialogues. Kissack’s book brings out the essential role English-speaking anarchists in the United States played in the larger conversation on homosexuality (or homoeroticsm, intermediate types, homo-sexualists, deviants, fairies, inverts, pederasts, all terms used to describe folks we now use terms like queer, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender for).
If you are looking for some juicy gossip about hot late-night make out sessions between Alexander Berkman and John William Lloyd (as I certainly was) you will be somewhat disappointed as you turn the pages of Free Comrades. It appears that the majority of the anarchist sex radicals enjoyed talking about same-sex eroticism without talking too much or experiencing much, of the sweat, kissing, sucking, touching, tasting, and fucking that, often, goes hand-in-hand with same-sex eroticism. This does not mean Kissack’s writing is not interesting, informative, and essential. It simply means that we need another book, likely a fiction one, including stories of Emma Goldman’s first woman-on-woman anarchist sexual experience.
Kissack boldly states that, “the first sustained US-based consideration of the social, ethical, and cultural place of homosexuality took place within the English-language anarchist movement.”(3) I imagine the current leadership of the racist, classist, transphobic, patriarchal Human Rights Campaign might not want to consider anti-statist, anti-capitalist, revolutionaries as their fore-parents. However, John William Lloyd, Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Leonard Abbott, and Benjamin R. Tucker published and presented many articles, speeches, and books about same-sex eroticism between the 1890’s and 1920’s, well before the Kinsey studies or the homophile movement.
Kissack begins the first chapter by providing some explanation of anarchist politics and values for those who are unfamiliar. While his overview is short and incomplete it provides enough information for liberal queers who may want to learn some of their long-silenced queer history. The differences between individualist and communist anarchists were over-simplified, to a point I think may anger some contemporary anarchist communists. However, his sentence summary of anarchism would make a good introduction to an elevator speech on anarchism, “[T:]he basic principles of self-rule, freedom of individual expression, opposition to hierarchy, and the defense of social and individual dissent were the essential heart of anarchism.”(19) Kissack also details for readers some of the differences between sex radical anarchists such as Emma Goldman and sex negative misogynists such As Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Sex radical anarchists were challenged for “wasting critical resources speaking on topics of secondary importance… the issue of economic injustice was of paramount importance.”(28), not unlike the same debates that happen today around “identity politics”.
The following two chapters focus on Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, and the anarchist response to these two men, their writing, sexuality, and persecution. Both Wilde and Whitman had ongoing friendships and influence in anarchist politics. They each had significant critiques of anarchism and anarchists leading to great criticism of both by some anarchists. Kissack explores the anarchist defense of Wilde and Whitman in numerous ways. Oscar Wilde’s sentence of two years hard labor for committing “acts of gross indecency with men” galvanized significant support from anarchists and forced a conversation of anarchist politics in relationship to homoerotic sex/uality. Public defenses by anarchists such as Lloyd, Goldman, and Tucker depended strongly on the connection of Wilde and Whitman with normative masculine standards of manhood. Lloyd argued that, “same-sex passion is quintessentially manly.”(77) He did so as anarchists and others continuously disparaged “effeminate men and fairies.” Unfortunately the anarchists at the time either did not recognize the misogyny in their negative attitudes toward femme men or did not care that they were perpetuating systems of patriarchy with their actions. Kissack, as the historian, does not bring much of a critical analysis to the anarchists’ dependence on masculine gender-normativity for their defense of actual individuals engaged in homoerotic relationships.
The longest chapter is devoted to “prison and the politics of homosexuality”, primarily focused on Berkman’s Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist. Berkman details his own transition from homophobe when he entered the prison to an advocate for homoerotic relationships by the end of his sentence. He even referred to, “love between inmates as a form of resistance to the spirit-crushing environment of prison.” (102) Kissack suggests that Berkman’s memoirs is, “one of the most important political texts dealing with homosexuality to have been written by an American before the 1950’s.” (102) Early in his memoir Berkman confuses coercive sexual abuse with homosexuality. Later he develops a better understanding of consent, deeply informed by his anarchism, and thus significantly alters his understanding of sexual relationships in prison. To communicate his politics on homosexuality Berkman creates a character, George, with whom he has an extensive conversation, one of the most thorough and detailed positive explorations of homosexuality published at the time. In their conversation Berkman very clearly distinguishes between coercive abuse and consensual homoerotic relationships. He specifically examines age difference, love, and butch/femme (not the language he would use) relationship norms. Unfortunately it appears as though Berkman was not actually sex-positive. He even refers to the prospects of penetrative, oral or anal, sex as “desecrating” another. One is left to wonder if Berkman’s relationships with the two younger prisoners he details actually were as physically platonic as he alleges.
Kissack does have a chapter in which he attempts to make up for leaving out lesbians in the majority of his writing. Unfortunately his attempt is quite weak and is instead somewhat insulting and patriarchal. Certainly patriarchy impacted the anarchists between 1895 and 1917 but I am sure there must be more available for historical review than what Kissack presents to the reader. Kissack does, however, detail a somewhat homoerotic relationship between Goldman and one of her admirers, Almeda Sperry. Sperry had both female and male lovers and deeply longed for a relationship with Goldman. There is some question about whether or not the two of them ever engaged in any physical expressions of intimacy, but their letters provide deeply erotic imagery, especially on the part of Sperry. One has to assume that the majority of the anarchists’ discussion about support of same-sex relationships between men applied equally to women as men.
Free Comrades provides an important examination of a history largely forgotten and/or unknown by both anarchists and the mainstream queer/GLB/trans movements. This book is a reminder to anarchists that we need to honor and celebrate queer/GLB/trans folks in our ranks and struggle to lift those voices up. This book is also a reminder to us that we need to present an alternative to the mainstream gay/lesbian movement especially for queer/GLB/trans young people. As the same-sex marriage movement continues to gain momentum the politics presented in this book give us an outlet to challenge the current priorities of assimilationist gay/lesbian organizations.
The history in this book is far from complete. There is much we need to continue to learn and find out about gender-nonconforming anarchists, lesbians, and other queers of any gender. While there is much to learn from these sex radical anarchists we also need to challenge a great deal of their sexual politics. Sex is nothing for us to be ashamed of. As a queer anarchist I want to see my sexuality validated as something more than just a really great friendship. Until recently when I had sex with my lover I was committing an act of civil disobedience. Our contemporary sex radicalism needs to include a little more sex in it. Take some time, read this book, and let us learn from the past so we can create something better for today.
~Jason Lydon
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 20, 2013
First off, as a queer anarchist, this book is pretty much the worst of how anarchists engage in sectarian self validation. That is, Kissack narrows his study of anarchism to English speaking anarchists in the United States and, in terms of his thesis that anarchists represent an extreme-left position of social tolerance ends up making anarchism into a sort of liberal politics. That is, he can find plenty of examples of anarchists defending individuals whose sexuality invoked state repression (mainly Oscar Wilde) and anarchists reading contemporary sociological literature (like Havelock Ellis) and on the basis of "modernity" and "enlightenment" being A-Ok with people being gay, he has trouble really finding anything that resembles a "queer" moment in anarchism other than the "manly love of comrades." Ultimately, anarchists in the pre-World War I era were more progressive (at least among the 5 or so public intellectuals he quotes extensively) of homosexuality and had some influence on early gay liberation (although its the thinnest part of his book) especially compared to the post-Lenin American Communist movement (with its conception of homosexuality as bourgeois decadence) which he doesn't get into very much. His research fails to add anything new (if you've read "Living My Life" of "Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist" you're aware of anything he mentions to some extent) and the idea that sexual liberation as a tenant of the anarchist movement is pretty untenable given that, if we stop looking only at mostly middle class English public speakers, even stronger anarchist commitments (like, lets say, the abolition of marriage as a property relation) weren't really centered. Also, Adolf Brand's "The Self-Owner" (i'd butcher the German spelling) is a resource that might provide a more robust history of the question of homosexuality in the Anarchist movement (which he conveniently ignores to call Brand a misogynist which is, honestly, probably true; but its not like many anarchist figures were particularly more enlightened about women) given that Brand broke with the "born this way/proto-identity politics" of German movement spearheaded by Magnus Hirchfield and probably has more in common with present day Queer Anarchist tendencies than anything covered in his book but, oh wait, Kissack ignores that to talk about the "modern" anarchism (in 2008!) of Bob Black & Murray Bookchin (does anyone even read either of them anymore? if so hit me up, because i assumed neither had any followers left) along with a dabbling of Hakim Bey (who like, does anyone take seriously?). A better study would focus on how an emphasis on egalitarianism made some sort of tolerance a possibility in anarchist works (and would make much of the same citations) compared to the rigid authoritarianism of the American Communist movement (which the enforced closet of is undercovered) and would highlight that when the AC drove Harry Hay out, he created the Mattachine on similar principals to the ones endorsed by most of the writers Kissack covers (but Hay is dismissed pretty much presumptively as a liberal, which ignores his own struggles in the Mattachine and his work after his expulsion which is more in line with people like Hakim Bey, see what i did there?)
basically, don't waste your time or money
basically, don't waste your time or money
July 22, 2012
three stars because it interested me, and i'm glad someone wrote it, and there was a whole lot that i was either vaguely aware of or completely unfamiliar with. i was particularly excited to see the one paragraph about Dr. Alan Hart meeting Emma Goldman- i would love to know if she was as much of an influence on him as Kissack implied.
no more than three stars, though, because there was a lot about this book that just didn't work for me. first, Kissack repeatedly overstates his points, really stretching to justify a point/characterization/trend/etc but not providing the reader with much support for it. there's also a lot of imbalance generated by committing a lot of attention to individual people/situations/debates. so the flow of reading was a bit odd.
like some other Goodreads reviewers, I also feel like what I expected (based on back cover, etc) was a bit different than what i got. this book seemed to primarily be about pre-WWI anarchists' views on same-sex [male] sexuality. fine, but a different and more narrow scope than i'd anticipated.
no more than three stars, though, because there was a lot about this book that just didn't work for me. first, Kissack repeatedly overstates his points, really stretching to justify a point/characterization/trend/etc but not providing the reader with much support for it. there's also a lot of imbalance generated by committing a lot of attention to individual people/situations/debates. so the flow of reading was a bit odd.
like some other Goodreads reviewers, I also feel like what I expected (based on back cover, etc) was a bit different than what i got. this book seemed to primarily be about pre-WWI anarchists' views on same-sex [male] sexuality. fine, but a different and more narrow scope than i'd anticipated.
June 15, 2016
As an introductory work, I found Free Comrades to be thoroughly enjoyable with the potential to spark an interest in the works of any of the host of 19th and early 20th century anarchists and/or sex radicals highlighted in the book. I suppose the trade off there is that at times topics felt rushed or too glossed-over, but as somebody interested in libertarian philosophy and queer history I would heartily recommend it to anybody with similar interests or even a desire to learn about what gay life was like in the not so distant, pre-Stonewall past. Even if some of the anarchists' advocacy was rooted in their philosophy more than a true kinship with the misunderstood homosexuals, they largely tried to understand for the sake of knowledge, and when that can feel like too much to ask for even today from society there was something heartening in this narrow, underreported slice of American history.
October 5, 2009
i got bored with the focus on just a few figures: berkman and walt whitman, but the rest was very good - good analysis situating anarchists compared to other sex radicals in the US re attitudes to homosexuality and the development of that identity
March 20, 2013
An interesting book overall. Less about queer anarchists than about how anarchists viewed homosexuality in terms of their overall political critique (especially radical sex politics). The author also has a really strong overview of the anarchist movement in the U.S. in general.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews