Welcome to the Kate Sharpley Library
The Kate Sharpley Library exists to preserve and promote anarchist history. (More information.)
Everything at the Kate Sharpley Library - acquisitions, cataloguing, preservation work, publishing, answering enquiries is done by volunteers: we get no money from governments or the business community. All our running costs are met by donations from members of the collective, subscribers and supporters, or by the small income we make through publishing. Please consider donating and subscribing.
We also try to promote the history of anarchism by publishing studies based on those materials - or reprints of original documents taken from our collection. Check out our books and pamphlets available for sale or explore our online documents or browse back issues of our Bulletin.
Our physical library (in California) includes books, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts and ephemera documenting the history of anarchist movements. Contact us to arrange a visit.
Recent news
Class, community and anarchism, a talk by Barry Pateman in Wellington
A talk by veteran anarchist Barry Pateman on class, community and anarchism is now available to view online.
The talk was organised by the Wellington Region branch of the Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement, and took place on Sunday May 24th, 2009 at the 128 Radical Community Centre in Wellington, New Zealand.
It is a total of 43 minutes, split into 5 parts on YouTube.
Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPOUgxicjvo
Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=099Ns6UL_DI
Part 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C2ocIgV7kw
Part 4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KguUN5T-Yz4
Part 5 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z9IEovH-K0
“Anarchism and Anarchy: A Historical Perspective” Barry Pateman at the 2009 NAASN Conference.
Barry Pateman's talk on “Anarchism and Anarchy: A Historical
Perspective” at the 2009 NAASN (North American Anarchist Studies
Network) Conference is now available to view online at http://www.revolutionbythebook.akpress.org/anarchism-and-anarchy-a-historical-perspective-barry-pateman-at-the-2009-naasn-conference/
or http://www.youtube.com/user/Chomskyan#g/c/591BAFB0E500AF7D.
Barry talks about some of the problems with anarchist history: amnesia and the selective filetting of
history (with Emma Goldman as an example) and also recurrent issues in
the history of the anarchist movement, like sectarianism and
organisation.
Anna Mendelson 1948-2009
The members of the Kate Sharpley Library collective are saddened to report the recent death of Anna Mendelson. Anna was one of the defendants in the "Stoke Newington Eight" ("Angry Brigade") trial of 1972. After her release from prison she devoted herself to poetry and family life, publishing her work as Grace Lake.
John Barker, one of her co-defendants, paid her this tribute: "Anna was such a dynamo... [She made] a commitment to the life of a poet and mother in which I'm sure she put the same wholehearted conviction she gave to everything. She had shown this to a 'public audience' when defending herself at the Old Bailey trial which could not be forgotten by anyone who witnessed a political passion without cliches."
Anna died on 16th November after a long battle with cancer. Our thoughts go out to her family and friends.
[Mendleson was her family name, but it's often spelled Mendelson. Later
she adopted the spelling Mendelssohn. An obituary from the next Kate
Sharpley Library bulletin has now been posted:
http://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/9w0wq9]
Kate Sharpley Library update: The keyword is books. Or newspapers.
Kate Sharpley Library on Facebook: another way to get in touch.
The KSL Bookmarks have been reprinted (having given loads away at the London Anarchist Bookfair). Send us a donation and collect the set!
New release: Sparks of Hope: Impressions of Early North American Anarchist Newspapers: words by Barry Pateman; music by Devin Hoff. [CD]
Elsewhere, the great Christie Books website http://www.christiebooks.com/ has been redesigned.
New pamphlet: After Makhno (Hidden histories of Anarchism in the Ukraine)
The Kate Sharpley Library is pleased to announce a new pamphlet containing two essays on Anarchist and Makhnovist opposition in the Ukraine after the triumph of Bolshevism.
After Makhno : The Anarchist underground in the Ukraine in the 1920s and 1930s: Outlines of history By Anatoly V. Dubovik
& The Story of a Leaflet and the Fate of the Anarchist Varshavskiy
(From the History of Anarchist Resistance to Totalitarianism) by D.I.
Rublyov
Translated by Szarapow
Nestor Makhno, the great Ukranian anarchist peasant rebel escaped
over the border to Romania in August 1921. He would never return, but
the struggle between Makhnovists and Bolsheviks carried on until the
mid-1920s. In the cities, too, underground anarchist networks kept
alive the idea of stateless socialism and opposition to the party state.
New research printed here shows the extent of anarchist opposition to Bolshevik rule in the Ukraine in the 1920s and 1930s.
ISBN 9781873605844 Anarchist Sources #12
£2 or $3 from:
Kate Sharpley Library, BM Hurricane, London, WC1N 3XX
Kate Sharpley Library, PMB 820, 2425 Channing Way, Berkeley CA 94704, USA