(H/B) THE BLANQUI READER

Παρουσίαση

First English-language collection of writings by the legendary nineteenth-century insurrectionist edited by Peter Hallward and Philippe Le Goff
Translated by Mitchell Abidor, Peter Hallward, and Philippe Le Goff.

Louis Auguste Blanqui (1805-1881) was one of the most important and controversial figures in nineteenth-century French revolutionary politics, and he played a major role in all of the great upheavals that punctuated his life - the insurrections of 1830, 1848 and 1870-71. Adamant that a just and egalitarian society can only be established by revolutionary means, he recognised that no insurrection can succeed if it fails to overcome the coercive resources of the state, and no revolutionary government can endure if it betrays the principles that alone earn and deserve mass support.
At odds with followers of Proudhon on the one hand and of Marx on the other, Blanqui commanded unrivalled authority in French revolutionary circles during parts of his own lifetime but was quickly forgotten (if not derided) after his death. This is the first collection of Blanqui's writings ever published in English, and it includes new and complete translations of his best-known texts: Instructions for an Armed Uprising and Eternity by the Stars. With material drawn from all his most important publications and speeches, as well as from the full sweep of his voluminous manuscripts and correspondence, this wide-ranging anthology will enable anglophone readers and political activists to arrive at their own critical assessment of Blanqui's thought and legacy for the first time. (From the publisher)

"Auguste Blanqui believed that a well-organized and secretive revolutionary elite could succeed in taking power in nineteenth-century France and bring about a regime of social justice. Yet it did not work out that way. Spending much of his life in prison, he had lots of time to reflect and to write. This volume presents the best of the political writing of Blanqui, accompanied by the editors' introduction. We see why Blanqui's determined optimism and faith in education and ordinary people anticipated subsequent revolutionaries, including Lenin and Gramsci. And why what Blanqui has to say may be particularly relevant in our time." - John Merriman, Charles Seymour Professor of History, Yale University, author of Ballad of the Anarchist Bandits

Περιεχόμενα

Abbreviations
Chronology
Editor's note and acknowledgments
Preface: Blanqui our contemporary? By Peter Hallward
Introduction by Philippe Le Goff
1830-1834: The July revolution and its aftermath
1835-1847: Secret societies
1848: Year of revolution
1849-1852: Learning from defeat
1830-1880: Philosophical and political fragments
1866-1869: Writings from Exile
1870-1872: From the Siege of Paris to the Astronomical Hypothesis
Selected bibliography
Index
Abbreviations