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theses

This dissertation is the first sustained evaluation of postwar British and American anarchist thought. I argue that British and American anarchist intellectuals like Herbert Read, Alex Comfort, Colin Ward, Paul Goodman, and Murray Bookchin gave shape to a distinct genre of anarchist thought in the middle decades of the 20th century by adapting anarchism to non-revolutionary conditions. Their thought was both radical and reformist, utopian and pragmatic, aimed at democratizing existing institutions no less than constructing alternatives outside of the state system. It was inspired not only by “classical” anarchist thinkers like William Godwin and Peter Kropotkin, but by disciplines like psychology, sociology, and urban planning, as well as indigenous sources of radicalism like Guild Socialism and Populism. I show how these figures made anarchism relevant to the most pressing social and political issues of the postwar world: the rise of the “managerial” welfare state, the threat of nuclear annihilation, the influence of mass culture and mass education on a growing middle class, and burgeoning concerns about environmental destruction. Their thought pointed towards a new approach to political practice, giving theoretical expression to the “intuitive” anarchism of new social movements like the nuclear disarmament and pacifist movements, the student movement, the ecology movement, and the community control movement. By revealing the political thought of the New Anarchists to be a coherent and inventive body of ideas, I overturn the common belief that the postwar era was unproductive for anarchist theory.

ETD_5352

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Benjamin Jacob Pauli

doi:10.7282/T3RB72XZ

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.