Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas

by Errico Malatesta, Vernon Richards (Editor)

This collection gathers quotes from Malatesta's periodical writings over a lifetime of revolutionary activity. Though the quotes are often repetitive, a clear picture of Malatesta's classical chaos emerges: a revolutionary, non-pacifist, non-reformist vision informed by decades of engagement in struggle and study.

Genres: Politics, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Biography, History

325 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 1, 1965

About the author

Errico Malatesta (December 14, 1853 – July 22, 1932) was an Italian anarchist. He spent much of his life exiled from Italy and in total spent more than ten years in prison. Malatesta wrote and edited a number of radical newspapers and was also a friend of Mikhail Bakunin. He was an enormously popular figure in his time. According to Brian Doherty, writer for Reason magazine, "Malatesta could get tens of thousands, sometimes more than 100,000, fans to show up whenever [he] arrived in town." (Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Luke Glasspool · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deadass, this was an interesting read. There was a nice balance between Malatesta’s ideas and anarchist thought as a whole. The content was somewhat repetitive at stages, hence the 4*, instead of 5*. This one low-key niche so don’t let the middle class drillers who want to be edgy see this, they will gaslight you about the perks of anarchy after reading this.

P.s. hold tight my dad for copping me this for chrimbo.

[Boris Gregoric · Rating 3 out of 5]

solid complitaion of malatesta pamphlets and writing culled from varios anarchist periodicals of the era. the biographical nits and bits in the second part, not too good or enlightening.

the most salient point is, how contemporary, and even more urgent and pressing most of his ideas are in this day and age.

malatesta is alive.

[Onur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kitap gerçekten de Malatesta'nın anarşizm ve anarşizmin yaşamın farklı konuları üzerindeki tasavvurları hakkında yazdığı yazıların iyi bir derlemesi olmuş. Malatesta'nın sade dili, farklı bakış açılarından yaklaşan anarşistlere olan saygısı ve şüpheciliği takdire şayan.

[putri · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Fletcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well written and a solid collection of essays that grasp Malatestas overall thought, great biography that incorporates his revolutionary action as examples of his own praxis.

[Pushon Bhattacharya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Smart, pragmatic anarchist theory by a man so dangerous to the establishment, he spent much of his prime in prison.

[Feargal McGovern · Rating 3 out of 5]

I tend to find the more anarchists talk like marxists, the more I can get into what they are saying. Malatesta is one such example.

[River · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up excited about the essay that was billed as an assessment of Malatesta's relevance for today. However, once I started reading it, I found out the essay was from the 1960s. Other material from dated editions of this book is included as well, making it a bit hard to follow at times. I also thought that the selections from Malatesta--culled from various anarchist newspapers over the years--were relatively disjointed and seemed too tightly trimmed.

The book probably does what it sets out to do, I was just expecting something different...

[Mark Richardson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was probably one of the greatest influences on my political education during the early to mid 1980's (along with Christi & Meltzer's 'Floodgates of Anarchy'). Always found Malatesta to be very readable, although the translator no doubt helped with that.

[Xio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can't rate it cause I leapfrog through the times between my ability to attend to this.