Customer Reviews (1)

A Great Book on the Basics of Anarchism
An excellent compilation of essays on anarchism.It doesn't really bog you down with historical facts.The portraits of the classical anarchists are very informative as well.A great book overall to read if yourinterested in anarchism or political thought. ... Read more

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A highly readable, informal study, this book explores the changing attitudes of Canadians that accompanied the many political, social, and technological developments in the hundred years between the War of 1812-14 and World War I.Illuminating the book with fresh perceptions as a writer of literature, Woodcock discusses th War of 1812 in myth and actuality; class; the Tory and radical trends in Canada; attitudes to women and to the native peoples; ethnic groups and their relationships; and the mystique of the land and how it led painters and writers towards a genuine Canadian tradition. ... Read more

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From the third volume of George Woodcock's autobiography:

"Like many people who grew old and have not cast off from the past, I feel the urgency that makes me want to write even of the recent past before it is too late, and also, to see at times my life in panoramic recession. For I realize now, looking back over my eight completed decades, that from the days I left school in 1929 up to 1977, I was involved in institutions, or something very like institutions, and depended on them largely for my living. I began with the eleven years working for the Great Western Railway. When I left that in 1949, I involved myself for almost a decade in the anarchist movement, which, though apparently lightly structured and voluntary in its operations, in fact had the orthodoxies and the moral pressures that made it into an institution of its own kind. Like Orwell, I found that a writer cannot further his political ideals by immersing himself in an organized movement, but only as guerilla fighting in his own terrain." ... Read more

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In his introduction to this provocative collection of essays, George Woodcock describes his response to a recent question about national unity. "I remarked impatiently that what interested me was not the achievement of 'national unity, but the accomplishment of creative anti-national disunity."Woodcock argues that if Canadians are angry about their alienation from the political decision-making process, it is because, in Canada, "geography has conspired with history to develop a whole series of local traditions that gain by their mingling, yet must retain their separateness for their mingling to be meaningful."The eight essays in this collection reveal how Canada's political practices betray its true life as a society. They argue for Native self-government, municipal autonomy, and consider the enormous importance of transportation and communications to a true participatory democracy. The book concludes with an inspiring essay on how basic changes in our approach to our society can be achieved. ... Read more