Book Description

'As the primary liberatory project, anarchism - the project which aims at the abolition of all forms of power, control, and coercion - remains entitled to appropriate the work of one of the greatest iconoclasts of all time. And although Nietzsche was rather harsh on his anarchist contemporaries - or more precisely on a type of contemporary anarchist - he nevertheless in some respects shared with them a vision of total transformation. The notion of a transvaluation of all values clearly remains not merely compatible with, but an integral component of the anarchist project, and the idea of philosophy with a hammer underlies the anarchist commitment to radical social transformation.'- John Moore, in "Attentat Art"This collection of essays is intended to examine various dimensions of the interactions between anarchism and Nietzsche. The aim of this volume is twofold: first, to provide instances of the historical appropriation of Nietzsche by anarchists, and second, to provide instances of appropriations and readings of Nietzsche by contemporary anarchist thinkers and commentators.The volume is thus divided into two sections, the historical and the contemporary, or in other words the periods of modernity and postmodernity. The historical section comprises four essays which consider historical appropriations of Nietzsche from a variety of ideological perspectives from the early twentieth century. Daniel Colson provides an overview of Nietzsche and the libertarian tradition and focusses on the appropriation of Nietzsche by French anarcho-syndicalists. Leigh Starcross reconstructs the ideas of Emma Goldman on Nietzsche and thus investigates an important intersection between anarchism, individualism and feminism. Allan Antliff considers the synthesis between anarchism, Eastern traditions and Nietzschean thought effected by Ananda Coomaraswamy, providing an important post-colonialist perspective to the topic. Finally, the modernity section includes the neglected but historically significant 1902 essay by the British anarchist Guy Aldred who provides an early and brief but very sophisticated anarchist reading of Nietzsche. The book's second section explores the relevance of Nietzsche to contemporary anarchism. At the core of this section are five essays-by Andrew Koch, Franco Riccio, Salvo Vaccaro, Saul Newman and Max Cafard-which from different perspectives deal with post-structuralist and post-modern readings of Nietzsche, and consider their appropriateness or otherwise for anarchists. These specific engagements with contemporary interpretations of Nietzsche are complemented by two essays focusing on specific aspects of Nietzsche's work from anarchist perspectives: John Moore provides an anarchist, post-situationist interpretation of Nietzsche's aesthetics, and Peter Lamborn Wilson considers the Islamic dimensions of Nietzsche's philosophy.