Cindy Milstein Boeken

An accessible and thorough overview of anarchist figures and tendencies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Consisting of 10 collaborative picture-essays that weave poetic words with intricate yet bold images, this collection aims to challenge readers into thinking of community action in a positive light. Depicting what it would be like to live, every day, in a world created from below, where coercion and hierarchy are largely vestiges of the past, Paths Toward Utopia suggests some of the practices that prefigure the self-organization that would be commonplace in an egalitarian society. This stirring book ultimately mines what people do in their daily lives for the already-existent gems of a freer future—premised on anarchistic ethics like cooperation and direct democracy.

The lines of oppression are already drawn. The only question is, Which side are you on in the struggle against the violence that is white supremacy and policing? Taking Sides supplies an ethical compass and militant map of the terrain, arguing not for reform of structurally brutal institutions but rather for their abolition. Its thirteen essays are sharp interventions that take particular aim at the role of nonprofits, “ally” politics, and “peace police” in demobilizing rebellions against hierarchical power. The authors offer tools to hone strategies and tactics of resistance, and hold out the promise of robust, tangible solidarity across racial and other lines, because in the battle for systemic transformation, there are no outside agitators.