Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism

Peter Marshall's Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism has all the earmarks of a scholarly but eminently readable tour de force. It's comprehensive, objective, well sourced and indexed, and frequently updated. It has a large and helpful "select bibliography." The book covers all the major and (forgive the term) minor anarchists well. It's particularly adept at showing the precursors of anarchism as well as anarchism's close philosophical relatives. All the internal and external controversies and criticisms regarding anarchism are covered as well as anarchism's replies. The book covers the history of anarchism in action and in thought. Although the book is a daunting 705 pages printed in a font a tad too small for aging eyes, the book is a page turner. With an admirable scrupulousness, Marshall largely doesn't interject his affiliations until the very end in the epilogue and, even then, he does so minimally.This will be a book that I consult frequently. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

A wonderful book that discusses the history and philosophy of Anarchism.

Inevitably incomplete and summary on some authors, while excessively detailed and redundant on others, this work offers nonetheless a pretty good panoramic on the anarchic universe. The style is academic but still enjoyable, historical and doctrinal elements are well balanced.I wish there was more on Malatesta and less on modern anarchic currents. Of course there were choices to be made and every author gives importance to what he feels more compelling.

Overall, an excellent overview of anarchism that is well worth reading. Glad I bought it and enjoyed reading it.However, at times the author goes from chronicling the views of individual anarchists (and opponents) to coming down on one side or another of a debate. This itself would be useful, except the author seems to give short shrift to views he doesn't share.For example, take Murray Bookchin's criticisms of deep ecology. Marshall simply treats Bookchin's criticisms as untenable and treats Bookchin's disagreements with the deep ecologists as an example of how Bookchin "laments our alienation from nature ... but he would still appear to be a victim of the process."Perhaps if the subtitle of "Demanding the Impossible" had been "An Evaluation and Critique of Anarchism" rather than "A History of Anarchism" this wouldn't have been so jarring, but it left me wondering (as someone not overly familiar with anarchist thinking and debates) how much of his history is colored by his own personal views on what is and is not anarchism proper.

This is the most concise book I've ever read about Anarchism. If you are even slightly interesting in the origins and practice of Anarchism I couldn't recommend anything other than this.

This is one of the best collections and historical recalls on Anarchism. Peter Marshall passion on the topic adds clarity and make it a most interesting reading

Peter Marshall embarks on a broad undertaking. The volume reads like a high school book report on each of the individuals. If you want a light rendering of Peter’s idea of notable anarchist replete with cliched summaries of their works rather than the salient ideas themselves , this book is for you. A better and more useful anthology of Anarchism would be :”’No Gods No Masters” by Daniel Guerin.

Excellent survey in terms of explanation and comparison of theories and theorists, mandatory reading for anyone who claims a knowledge of the subject.

For anyone looking for an overview of anarchist thought and its formative influences I am not aware of a better book than this. It is a relatively easy read compared to trudging through the original works of some of the thinkers represented here. I know anarchists love to boast about the extent of their libraries on the topic, but there is no doubt that a summary written in contemporary vernacular is a less arduous journey than hundreds of pages of 19th Century florid prose.Marshall has done the movement a terrific service. All the big names are here, as well as the thinkers that influenced them. One of the greatest benefits of this book is its power to point the reader to important works with which she may have previously been unfamiliar - Oscar Wilde's essay on socialism, for example.Very highly recommended.

This book does well in explaining the thinking and history behind Anarchism, especially pre-20th century. It is unbiased and does not attempt to convert anybody to anarchism but offers a better balanced discussion to counteract the negative popular conceptions of what anarchism is today. Enjoyed in particular the coverage of historical revolutions and how they may or may not have been influenced by anarchist thinkers of the time. Despite its size I enjoyed the full book. Quality of the print within the book not the best but you get used to it.

As far as I am concerned – and I know I’m not the only one – this book is the bible of anarchism, a mind-boggling achievement that can’t help but leave the reader with an awesome sense of just how deep and broad the history of anarchist thought is.An ‘easy’ read – in that it is so well structured and brilliantly written – but covering some ‘difficult’ subjects, it is well worth taking your time over this book, but I do have one warning to any potential reader: try to guard against being overwhelmed! Practically every page – and there are nearly 800 of them – contains pertinent references to other authors, articles, pamphlets, books, and events, and if you tried to track them all, let alone follow them, you’ll be lucky to remain sane. Instead, what this book can really do for the interested reader is to guide them to specific areas that they may want to develop in more detail in the future, and hopefully then provide a wider framework within which to gain insight into how these areas fit together under the banner of modern anarchism.

All, or most, of the information is here, but I found this book less exciting than I expected, given the subject.The histories of anarchism are divided up into chapters on individuals, countries, cultural phenomena etc., which make for easy reference, but a lack of flow and impulse, I found.You can't (or I can't) fault the scholarship and detail, but I would recommend the book more as a reference work to dip into selectively, rather than to read straight through. I tried to do that, but got bogged down - perhaps because of my lack of academic perseverance.

A well written comprehensive history of anarchism. Highly recommended.