Rebel Alliances: The Means and Ends of Contemporary British Anarchisms

by Benjamin Franks

Concentrating on the class-struggle tradition within anarchism, as represented by current national federations in Britain, Benjamin Franks identifies the main principles that distinguish these movements from competing Leninist, liberal, and social democratic groupings. From these key characteristics, Franks then constructs an “ideal type” of anarchism—a distinctive anarchist ethic—against which he assesses the theory and practice of contemporary political groups. With this lens, the entire anarchist movement is judged, making comparisons between differing schools of thought and parallel theoretical frameworks such as Autonomist Marxism and the Situationist International.

Genres: Politics

475 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2006

Reviews

[Inna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book. While its focus is the contemporary British anarchist groups, it is much more than that. While the author discusses intellectual and organizational debates within these groups, he discusses debates relevant to anarchism everywhere. These include the question of non-hierarchical organization, of violence, of non-hierarchical ways of struggle, etc. All of these are debated intelligently and sympathetically. The author does not try to impose his point of view, but presents the debates fairly. I learned a lot about anarchist theories from this book.
The book is largely about battles of ideas, rather than about actual political struggles. I found this useful, since I was interested in reading something good about various anarchist theories.

[abclaret · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book does a service in explaining within academic discourse what it is that anarchists think their doing and draws on a school of philosophy to back that up. Franks concisely constructs how anarchists differ from other schools of thought and fleshes out the prefigurative (means and ends model) which is fundamental to its praxis. Further it helps sort the various tactics and strategies of the numerous federations, collectives etc. who make up the UK anarchist/libertarian movement and puts them in a logical and accessible way.

The books over-arching approach aside its absolutely painstakingly dull to read. The book would have had a more human touch to it if it had been compiled by a computer programme simply regurgitating data in a logical assortment. I am not sure if the author thought he was being objective with the flow of arguments but its easily a big factor in making the book a milestone to read.

And talking of content. Your response to this book in the main, could easily be surmised into two schools of opinion based on one question; have you ever been a member or supporter of Class War? The book is so skewed towards Class War, its difficult to take it seriously. By referencing almost every other quote from Class War, you would near on assume they were central to the anarchist project, which is not entirely the truth now is it. An accessible book that looks at all the proponents of anarchism in a fair and balanced manner, dissecting their ideas and praxis this isn't. The book is unfortunately a flawed write-up on a very neglected subject.

[Justin Stepney · Rating 4 out of 5]

really connected for me a lot of people, organizations, and on and on and on, in anarchy/radical past (and present.) i love the connections that open up thru musesick, politics and on and on as u read on.