Page Text: II. Herbert Spencer: His Philosophy
Supplementary Material
Anarchy: Its Philosophy, Its Ideal
Co-operation: A Reply to Herbert Spencer
Letter to Comradeship
The State: Creator of Monopolies
Advance Praise
Iain McKay’s definitive version of Modern Science and Anarchy is another welcome product of his continuing effort to broaden our understanding of Kropotkin’s ideas, recovering texts scattered and forgotten in the course of Kropotkin’s transnational activism. More than an exercise in Kropotkiana however, this work offers Kropotkin’s most concise exposition of the ideas that defined his life, focusing on anarchism’s interactions with the defining scientific and political currents of modern European history, and staking a claim for anarchism as a vital, and intellectually sophisticated, component of this story. – Matthew Adams, author of Kropotkin, Read, and the Intellectual History of British Anarchism
Finally – after all these years the definitive edition of Kropotkin’s Modern Science and Anarchy. Here we have not only a mature restatement of Kropotkin’s anarchist communism, but Kropotkin’s own history of anarchist ideas and movements, a survey of libertarian and anarchist currents throughout human history, as Kropotkin describes the perennial struggle between authority and liberty. But that is not all – the second half of the book, a series of essays selected by Kropotkin himself on the rise of capitalism and the state, contains some of Kropotkin’s best work, including "The State: Its Historic Role." Iain McKay is to be commended for so carefully editing and annotating one of Kropotkin’s most important books, well deserving a place alongside Mutual Aid and The Conquest of Bread. – Robert Graham, author of 'We Do Not Fear Anarchy - We Invoke it': The First International and the Origins of the Anarchist Movement and editor of Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas.
This new, definitive edition of Kropotkin's Modern Science and Anarchy is an important addition to the literature on one of the most influential figures in the development of modern libertarian communism. Iain McKay’s introduction is a model of scholarship and succeeds not only in contextualising and explaining Kropotkin’s ideas, but also in addressing a number of misunderstandings and misrepresentations along the way. He also makes a convincing case for the book’s continuing relevance for present-day radicals. – David Berry, author of A History of the French Anarchist Movement, 1917 to 1945
This is a welcome new translation of a long neglected text by Peter Kropotkin. In the spirit of Kropotkin, the volume includes a highly knowledgeable and sympathetic - yet not uncritical - introduction by the editor, who also adds some clarifying footnotes to the original text. In Modern Science and Anarchy Kropotkin positions his anarchism in relation to Comte, Spencer and Hegel. Whilst Kropotkin’s enthusiasm for science (and indeed his somewhat mechanistic account of science) is dated, there is much more to the text than a simplistic paean to positivism. It rightly identifies anarchism as a product of oppressed peoples’ struggle rather than the outcome of specialist technical thinkers (though he also pays debts to Bakunin and Proudhon) and provides a concise and attractive account of anarchist communism and a still pertinent discussion of alternatives. This book will not only be of keen interest to specialists in science studies, political epistemology and the history of political ideas, but also to contemporary libertarian activists who will still find plenty of relevant, clearly explained material to engage with. – Benjamin Franks, author of Rebel Alliances: The Means and Ends of Contemporary British Anarchisms