Anarchist Ecologies. An Environmental History of Emancipation

Anarchist Ecologies. An Environmental History of Emancipation

400 pages

Hardcover

Genre: Nature, Science, History, Nonfiction
Despite the urgency of developing new ideas for the future, it is also worth re-examining the past. After all, past generations did not simply stumble blindly into ecological destruction.

In Anarchist Ecologies, Milo Probst shows how anarchists between 1870 and 1920 repeatedly sought new ways of inhabiting this earth and living off its riches. The historian allows a variety of voices to have their say, from celebrities such as Pëtr Kropotkin or the brothers Élie and Élisée Reclus to lesser-known authors such as Jean Grave or André Léo and anonymous authors of newspaper articles. In different ways, they all yearned for a different way of dealing with fellow human beings and the environment: a different use of the earth, different forms of labour and techniques, a different relationship to one's own body. However, this does not necessarily make them visionary forerunners of contemporary ecological thinking. Rather, this book argues – in anarchist fashion –  in favour of taking people's ability to experiment creatively and self-determinedly with their environmental relationships seriously.

German title: Anarchistische Ökologien - Eine Umweltgeschichte der Emanzipation
ISBN: 978-3-7518-2044-8
Publisher: Matthes & Seitz Berlin
Publication date: 21.11.2024

Licence

Non-fiction

Sample translation

English sample available

Milo Probst, born in Basel in 1991, completed his doctorate at the University of Basel in 2022 on environmental criticism in anarchism at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. He is currently conducting postdoctoral research on the history of women in the German and Italian ecology movements of the 1970s and 1980s. His book Für einen Umweltschutz der 99% was published in 2021 by Nautilus.