Print Culture and the Formation of the Anarchist Movement in Spain, 1890 OCo 1915

Anarchism in Spain had a long and, at times, convoluted history before the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s and this book looks at how newspapers and other print publications helped to build the anarchist movement in Spain, the challenges it faced, and ultimately, how it struggled against the power of the state.

Anarchism is a political philosophy close to utopianism in which the state would essentially cease to exist as an entity and individuals working together would make decisions. What is interesting in this exhaustive work is how the Anarchist community often took jabs at each other when compared with the mainstream. The author did a tremendous job going through the many different publications, since a large number of them did not last long and only printed a few issues.

Spain at this time was considered a backwater of Europe, having lost its former glory and power. But the anarchist and Marxist movements, with all their splits and infighting, were alive and well in Spain. This book will help readers understand how regionalized the movement was, but also how the print publications helped explain the changing world to a largely rural and working class population.