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Anarchist seeds beneath the snow Two centuries of British libertarianism David Goodway: Anarchist seeds beneath the snow. Left-libertanan thought and British writers from William Morris to Colin Ward. Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2012. xi + 434 pp. [ISBN: 978-1-60486221-8] Paper: $24.95.
Anarchist seeds beneath the snow (henceforth, Seeds), a new offering from PM Press, is an updated paperback version of a book first published by Liverpool University Press in 2006. Aside from numerous small changes and corrections throughout, it differs from the original chiefly through the addition of a 27-page Afterword by the author, David Goodway, that adds brief notes on each chapter, mention of relevant publications since 2004 (when the first version was completed), and four pages on some left-libertarian writers not included in 2006. It is a big book (over 400 pages), some chapters are heavy going, and it is by no means all about anarchists, as the title might seem to suggest, but it is well worth reading.
Goodway began his political activism as a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament's direct-action wing, the Committee of 100. : He completed a first degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford, and his Ph.D. at Birkbeck College, London. His doctoral thesis, supervised by the famous Marxist historian Eric Hosbawm, was published as London Chartism, 1838-1848 (Cambridge University Press, 1982, paperback edition, 2002). Goodway worked as a Lecturer at Leeds University's School of Continuing Education for 36 years, until the School closed for financial reasons in 2005. He will already be well known to many ASR readers as the editor of several excellent books, including For anarchism: History, theory and practice (London: Routledge, 1989), Herbert Read reassessed (Liverpool University Press, 1998), For workers' power: The selected writings of Maurice Brinton (Oakland: AK Press, 2004), The anarchist past and other essays by Nicholas Walter (Nottingham: Five Leaves Publications, 2009), and Nicholas Walter, Damned fools in Utopia and other writings on anarchism and war resistance (Oakland: PM Press, 2011), and also as the author of many articles and book chapters in the anarchist press.
Goodway's teaching at Leeds often combined history, art history, architecture and literature, as do his writing and public talks to this day. The expertise in literature is obvious throughout Anarchist...