A British Anarchist Tradition: Herbert Read, Alex Comfort and Colin Ward

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

A British Anarchist Tradition focuses on three contemporary British theorists and practitioners, Herbert Read, Colin Ward, and Alex Comfort and looks at their interrelation, commonality, and collective influence on British radical thought. The book aims to foster a greater understanding of anarchism as an intellectual response to 20th century developments and its impact on political thought and movements. For the first time, the work of these three writers is presented as a tradition, highlighting the consistency of their themes and concerns. To do so, the book shows how they addressed the problems faced by modern British society, with clear lines of political, literary, and intellectual traditions linking them. It also focuses on their contribution to the development of anarchist conceptions of freedom in the twentieth century. A British Anarchist Tradition identifies an area of anarchism that deserves greater critical, scholarly attention. Its unique and thorough research will make it a valuable resource for anyone interested in contemporary anarchist thought, political theory, and political movements.

Reviews

"Carissa Honeywell is to be loudly applauded for her serious efforts to trace a new strand of common thought in anarchism in Britain. She argues convincingly that writers like Read, Comfort and Ward are not solitary or eccentric figures but ones whose cumulative work presented a significant, and sometimes surprisingly influential, challenge to dominant mores. And she shows the important pragmatic relevance of their ideas for us today."-Professor George McKay, University of Salford
"Carissa Honeywell gives a vivid portrait of the thinking of three prominent British anarchists from the last century. Her book is especially good in articulating the strands of their writing and showing how their special interests - art for Read, desire for Comfort and housing for Ward - connected to their overall philosophies. Anti-militarism was important for all three. A British Anarchist Tradition provides a good sense of anarchist ideas generally. It will encourage interest in a specifically British orientation to anarchism and in three articulate precursors of today's anarchist practice." - Brian Martin, Professor of Social Sciences, University of Wollongong,
"This timely, insightful work brings to the fore a potent historical sensibility that animates anarchism's rich intellectual heritage and casts it within a ready framework for understanding contemporary anarchist theory and practice. In reclaiming anarchism's essential value as a coherent 'living tradition', Carissa Honeywell offers a compelling narrative that contributes significantly to the emerging field of anarchist studies."Randall Amster, J.D., Ph.D.Faculty, Chair, Peace & Justice Studies Association Prescott College.
A British Anarchist Tradition is an important act of recovery, highlighting the existence of a tradition of radical thought that had a significant place in twentieth-century British history, but has been ignored. Uniting Read, Comfort and Ward works well, and using the wartime reconfiguration of the British state as a unifying thread structures the analysis.... A British Anarchist Tradition is a valuable, historically informed, book -- Matthew S. Adams, University of Durham * European Review of History *

Author Bio

Carissa Honeywell is a Lecturer in Politics at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. She conducts research in the fields of political ideology and history of political ideas, as well as in utopian studies. She has presented her research on anarchism at conferences and workshops around the world and organized, in collaboration with Sheffield and Oxford universities, a conference that addressed the role of utopian thought in political ideology.