Errico Malatesta (Author); Davide Turcato (Editor)／AK Press／272 Pages

 

“Sensitively edited by Davide Turcato, ably translated by Paul Sharkey, and with a magisterial introduction by Nunzio Pernicone, this volume in the series emphasizes the claim for this impressive project to be appreciated as a work of major scholarship … Essential reading.” —Barry Pateman, historian, Kate Sharpley Library

“A major figure in Italy at the turn of the twentith century, Malatesta also significantly influenced Italian immigration to the United States. The publication of all his writings … sheds light on a whole section of the history of both nations.” —Ronald Creagh, professor emeritus, Paul Valéry University

“Turcato’s monumental and timely collection gifts us the essential Malatesta—one of the world’s greatest anarchist thinkers and agitators.” —Norman Nawrocki, actor, musician, and author of RED: Quebec Student Strike and Social Revolt Poems

 

After escaping from forced residency on an island off the coast of Italy, Errico Malatesta (1853–1932) made his way to London and eventually Paterson, New Jersey, in 1899. There, he took over the surviving voice of Italian anarchism, La Questione Sociale. Experience had led Malatesta to suggest a radical change in tactics. He claimed that his goal was not to “accomplish anarchy today, tomorrow or in ten centuries” but to “walk toward anarchy today, tomorrow, and always,” laying the foundation of an original, gradualist vision of anarchism. His writing addressed the themes of organization, the anarchist program, freedom as a method, the problem of love, bourgeois influences on anarchism, and much more. This volume, incorporating articles on the American situation, unpublished interviews, and reports on French and Spanish conferences—such as those held in Cuba in March 1900—demonstrates the transnational dimension of Malatesta’s activity, the breadth of his ideas, and his prominent role in labor and anarchist movements on both sides of the Atlantic. Includes an introduction by the late historian Nunzio Pernicone.

 

Davide Turcato is a historian of Italian anarchism and the author of Making Sense of Anarchism

Paul Sharkey has translated a vast body of anarchist writings from numerous languages into English