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I came to Means and Ends as a moderately well-read anarchist. I’ve read plenty of “theory”, and was already familiar with the writing of Bakunin, Kropotkin, Goldman, Malatesta, Cafiero, and others who were writing about anarchist communism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Europe and North America. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this book and got a lot out of it.

When I was only couple chapters into the book I had quipped that it was “dry and academic”, but I realize that this isn’t a fair description. Okay, maybe it is a bit dry in tone — which I feel is a bit unfair to the wild characters who comprised the anarchist movement — but Baker did a commendable job of transforming a PhD dissertation into something so easy to read. She was fairly even-handed in presenting the controversies that divided the movement, although I got the impression that she favors “mass anarchism” over insurrectionist and anti-organizational approaches.

Since anarchists (at least a certain breed of us) love a reading group, I can imagine that some may read at least a few chapters from Means and Ends. Here’s one way that the chapters could be prioritized:

3: Values, Critique, and Vision 5: Anarchism and State Socialism 4: Anarchist Strategy 7: Mass Anarchism 6: Insurrectionist Anarchism 9: The Theory and Practice of Syndicalist Anarchism 10: Organizational Dualism 8: The History of Syndicalist Anarchism 2: Theoretical Framework 11: Conclusion 1: Defining Anarchism

I still recommend reading them in the order used by book; what I’m suggesting here is that if you want to read only two chapters, read 3 and 5 (skipping 4), but if you can read a third, read 3 through 5. This is aimed at folks who are fairly new to anarchist writings and history from this era; for theory-heads who might want to challenge themselves with different viewpoints, I suggest choosing from 6, 7, 9, and 10 as appropriate.

If I could get every liberal and socialist I know to read the third chapter, that would go a long way toward helping them understand where I’m coming from — I’m surprised at how closely my basic values align with people who were born a century before me. On the other hand, the anarchists were uncanny in predicting how liberal democracies and state communism would develop in the postwar era and we still have the same fight on our hands.