Month: December 2012

Working Translations

Ernest Lesigne, “Socialistic Letters,” No. 8 (1887)

December 28, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] SOCIALISTIC LETTERS VIII These socialistic letters have earned me, as it should be, some unfriendly observations, with which I find nothing wrong, strong partisan that I am of the freedom of the press. Before such a touching agreement to criticize both content and form, to declare that writing in French, I must know nothing of what I say, and that it is very bold of me to dare address social questions without first being awarded a diploma by the regular doctors, there is nothing to do but make a strong mea culpa for the great liberty and recognize that […]
Ernest Cœurderoy
Working Translations

Max Nettlau, Biographical Notice of Ernest Coeurderoy

December 26, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
In June 1852, two events, quickly covered with the veil of silence, would deeply effect the exile community in London. Ledru-Rollin, Louis Blanc, Pierre Leroux, Cabet, Félix Pyat and their friends, some Blanquists, Proudhonians and independent socialists, some refugees from May 15 and June of 1848, as well as June 13, 1849, and the great majority of the outcasts from the coup d’état, rubbed elbows then in a common exile.

[…]

Contr'un

Jean Grave, The Adventures of Nono — Chapter XI

December 15, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE ADVENTURES OF NONO by JEAN GRAVE  [continued from Chapter X] –> XI THE AFTERMATH OF A FIRST MISTAKE On returning to Autonomie, took little part in the conversation. He pondered what he had just seen. A gamin of Paris, a child of workers for whom the greatest journey they could permit themselves was a walk in the woods of Clamart or Meudon, — it was an event when they could go as far as those of Verrières — he knew the sea only from the enthusiastic descriptions that he had found in books. Indeed, of mountains he only know […]
Contr'un

Charles Malato, “Some Anarchist Portraits” (1894)

December 12, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
–> FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW. No. CCCXXXIII. New Series.—September 1, 1894. SOME ANARCHIST PORTRAITS. I am an anarchist. I have known intimately most of those who have carried on the propaganda by word of mouth and by writing, and also by deed: and if I disallow the epithet of “anarchist,” as applied to certain acts of equivocal individuals, I am not the less convinced that social problems need, at certain moments, to be solved by force, when other means are ineffective. I love and admire Vaillant, for instance, just as some English republicans love and admire Cromwell, who also was a regicide. […]
Contr'un

The Paris Explosion

December 11, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE PARIS EXPLOSION. Paris, April 26.—To state that the explosion last night at the cafe of M. Very, at the corner of the Boulevard Magenta and Rue Sencey has caused a feeling of consternation in this city is to put it very mildly. The truth is that the people of Paris are panic stricken at the audacity of the Anarchists. The feeling of fear is heightened by the apparent impotency of the police to prevent the Anarchists from committing outrages when and where they please. There was a reason for last night’s outrage. It was in M. Very’s cafe that […]
Contr'un

Two-Gun Mutualism Rearmed extended outline

December 10, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
[I’ve sent this extended outline for the Two-Gun Mutualism book to a number of friends and colleagues for comment, and have been debating whether or not it made sense to post it here at this point. I certainly welcome any feedback on the project, but I’m also inclined to think that the extended outline amounts to as good a summary of my overall project as I am likely to be able to produce, so here it is, offered with the hope that it may serve as a help in navigating the rest of the material on the blog. The section […]
Contr'un

Looking forward to 2013

December 8, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
I spent last weekend in La Jolla, CA, at a Liberty Fund gathering devoted to the work of Gustave de Molinari, discussing a range of his writings with a small group including Roderick Long, Charles Johnson, Gary Chartier, Sheldon Richman, Matt Zwolinski, David Hart and David Friedman. It was an excellent event, and I’ll undoubtedly be coming back to Molinari’s writings in the near future. But it was also a very welcome break in my otherwise relentless, but not always well focused research into anarchist history and theory, with the train trip to and from making the break about a […]