The Stockade Stood Burning

Rebellion and Convict Lease in Tennessee’s Coalfields, 1891-1895 Sweet Tea     2010     32p     5 x 8 From the back cover: “Something happened in Tennessee, something almost unimaginable to the mine owners and politicians of that state. When the companies tried to intimidate their workers by bringing in convict labor to … Continue reading The Stockade Stood Burning

In Russian and French Prisons

Peter Kropotkin    1887   387p   5 x 8 Nearly a century has passed since Kropotkin wrote In Russian and French Prisons, yet his criticisms of the penal system have lost none of their relevance. Prisons—far from reforming the offender, or deterring crime—are, in themselves, ‘schools of crime’. Every year, thousands of prisoners are … Continue reading In Russian and French Prisons

Discipline and Punish

The Birth of the Prison Michel Foucault 1975 333p 5 x 8 Foucault suggests that such vaunted reforms as the abolition of torture and the emergence of the modern penitentiary have merely shifted the focus of punishment from the prisoner’s body to his soul. The four main parts include: torture, punishment, discipline and prison. $4-12 … Continue reading Discipline and Punish

Reflections on the Way to the Gallows

Rebel Women in Pre-War Japan Misiko Hane     1993     340p     6 x 9 As japanese court dictated, these condemned rebels wrote their biographies while awaiting execution. Hear what inspired and drove these socialists and anarchists to attack power. $5-10 Other works involving prisoners, assassination, memoirs, prisoner writings, japan, trial, executions, 1920s, 1930s

Rebels Against the Future

The Luddites and Their War on the Industrial Revolution Kirkpatrick Sale     1995     336p     6 x 9 Sale tells the compelling story of the Luddites’ struggle to preserve their way of life by destroying the machines that threatened to replace them and force further isolation, exploitation and alienation. ‘King Ludd’ lead anonymous groups of peasants against … Continue reading Rebels Against the Future

Papillion

Henri Charrière     1969     576p     5 x 8 “We have too much technological progress, life is too hectic, and our society has only one goal: to invent still more technological marvels to make life even easier and better. The craving for every new scientific discovery breeds a hunger for greater comfort and the constant struggle to … Continue reading Papillion

The Molly Maguires

The True Story of Labor’s Martyred Pioneers in the Coalfields Anthony Bimba     1932     144p     5 x 8 A forgotten chapter in the history of American labor, revealing the true nature of the so-called Molly Maguires as pioneers and martyrs in a determined struggle of the Pennsylvania anthracite region miners … Continue reading The Molly Maguires

Lucy Parsons

Freedom, Equality and Solidarity: Writings and Speeches, 1878-1937 Gale Ahrens     2004     183p     5 x 8 ‘More dangerous than 1000 rioters!’ That’s what the Chicago police called Lucy Parsons – America’s most defiant and persistent anarchist agitator, whose cross-country speaking tours inspired hundreds of thousands of working people. Her friends … Continue reading Lucy Parsons

The London Hanged

Crime and Civil Society in the 18th Century Peter Linebaugh     1991     524p     6 x 9 Peter Linebaugh’s groundbreaking history has become an inescapable part of any understanding of the rise of capitalism. In eighteenth-century London the spectacle of a hanging was not simply a form of punishing transgressors. Rather it … Continue reading The London Hanged