Overview

Stumbling across a Reddit forum in 2021, James Stout established contact with teenage Burmese rebels who were in military conflict with the junta. This unprofessional 'army' was intuitively antiauthoritarian and resourceful beyond imagination-they 3D print working firearms in the jungle. The dreams, motivations, and hardships of these young adults are immediately recognizable, despite differing context across space and time. These young revolutionaries, colloquially referred to by journalist James Stout as 'anarchists' for their nonhierarchical forms of organization based on mutual aid and solidarity, face incredible danger to pursue their expression of freedom. Against the State seeks to understand these anarchists, to honor their struggles, and ask tough questions about confronting the state. In doing so, Stout invites us to reimagine war in the twenty-first century. Against the State draws on Stout s research and experiences of conflict as an academic and journalist. What interests him in these regional conflicts, are places where people are taking care of one another while building new cooperative social relations. Stout provides testimony from those building democratic confederalism while fending off Turkish drones and ISIS fighters in Kurdistan, the young insurgents beating back the military junta in Burma, and, for historical context, those storied workers in 1936 that fought capitalism and fascism in the Spanish Civil War and Revolution. While these movements look and operate unlike guerrilla movements of the past, they still have their martyrs. Crucially, the book presents current movements as evolving, growing and shrinking after setbacks, and mourning the loss of combatants. Against the State centers the voices of those too often overlooked in conflict studies and misunderstood by Western radical movements.

Full Product Details

9781849355452

Table of Contents

Reviews

""With deep insight and empathy, scholar-journalist Stout brings us to the front lines of anarchists at war. From the barricades and armored vehicles of 1930s Catalonia to innovations in contemporary Rojava and Myanmar, the challenges and rewards of fighting for freedom, with freedom, are this fascinating and indispensable book's uplifting revelations."" --Edith Mirante, author of Where the Mithuns Are: Essays on War, Art and Beasts

""With deep insight and empathy, scholar-journalist Stout brings us to the front lines of anarchists at war. From the barricades and armored vehicles of 1930s Catalonia to innovations in contemporary Rojava and Myanmar, the challenges and rewards of fighting for freedom, with freedom, are this fascinating and indispensable book's uplifting revelations."" --Edith Mirante, author of Where the Mithuns Are: Essays on War, Art and Beasts ""What happens to revolutionary movements when they are forced to respond to state violence? In elegant prose and with formidable insight, historian James Stout answers that question, taking us deep into the heart of revolutionary Spain, Rojava, and Myanmar to observe how movements confronted with state violence can fight back while still retaining power in the hands of the people. Beautifully written, this cogent examination of revolutionary history is more relevant than ever--and impossible to set down."" --Debbie Bookchin, journalist and editor

Author Information

James Stout is a journalist, historian, and anarchist with experience working in conflict zones and mutual aid projects around the world. His PhD research was on international antifascism in the Spanish Second Republic and Civil War. He is the author of The Popular Front and the Barcelona 1936 Popular Olympics: Playing as If the World Was Watching.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available