A "lively, fast-paced history" (Adam Hochschild,
bestselling author of American
Midnight) of America's anarchist movement and the
government's tireless efforts to destroy itIn the early
twentieth century, anarchists like Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman
championed a radical vision of a world without states, laws, or
private property. Militant and sometimes violent, anarchists were
heroes to many working-class immigrants. But to many others,
anarchism was a terrifyingly foreign ideology. Determined to crush
it, government officials launched a decades-long "war on
anarchy," a brutal program of spying, censorship, and
deportation that set the foundations of the modern surveillance
state. The lawyers who came to the anarchists' defense advanced
groundbreaking arguments for free speech and due process, inspiring
the emergence of the civil liberties movement. American
Anarchy tells the gripping tale of the anarchists, their allies,
and their enemies, showing how their battles over freedom and power
still shape our public life.
