Goodway, David “Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow. Left-libertarian Thought and British Writers from William Morris to Colin Ward”. Liverpool University Press. Liverpool 2006. Pbk. xi, 401pp. Bibliography, index. ISBN 1-84631-026-1 £20.00 (hbk edition £50.00)

Firstly some words of clarification. Of the eleven featured authors, only six can be properly counted as anarchists: Edward Carpenter, Oscar Wilde, John Cowper Powys, Herbert Read, Alex Comfort and Colin Ward. Of the other three: George Orwell never described himself as an anarchist, Aldous Huxley and Christopher Pallis are at best “anarchistic”, and E.P. Thompson and William Morris were very much Marxists, albeit of the libertarian shade. The sub-title is therefore necessary to show the wider scope of the book.

Secondly, although these are the featured authors, the book is not exclusively about them. You will also find substantial discussion of writers such as Nicolas Walter, Eric Gill, George Woodcock and Peter Marshall, Carole Pateman and April Carter with walk-on parts for many others, which help to situate the work of the main authors and describe the political and social context in which the authors worked.

Thirdly, this is not an account of a movement or of the activists within it. It is a study of writers first and foremost, with a detailed discussion of their written works, albeit from a political (indeed explicitly anarchist) perspective. And as such this book provides readers with a valuable and entertaining guide to the written works of those authors.

Of the main authors discussed, I was already familiar, to varying degrees, with the work of most of them, though I wouldn't claim to have read the complete works of any of them. One author, John Cowper Powys, was new to me in this context. I had been aware of him as a writer but never grasped his political position, although this was very much at the “contemplative, spiritual” end of the anarchist spectrum. Having said which he knew Emma Goldman and had some small involvement with “Spain and the World” and the Sacco and Vanzetti defence. (One looks forward to reading David Goodway's forthcoming edition of the Powys - Goldman letters!) That said, I'm not sure I shall be tackling his lengthy novels, and his more philosophical works are not top of my must-get list.

Other than Powys, I am sure most readers of papers such as Freedom, will be aware of the other authors, although I suspect that people such as Herbert Read are considered rather out-of-fashion these days, and even Alex Comfort is little read (even if his picture books on sex remain very popular.) Aldous Huxley's novels, apart from the obvious “Brave New World” and possibly “Island” are rarely read and Herbert Read's work on art has been superceded, whilst his advocacy of “Education through Art”, whilst essentially libertarian, seems to stand little chance in these days of national curricula, testing, league tables and the like. Christopher Pallis (or Maurice Brinton as many will know him) I've discussed elsewhere, comes across as the most “engaged” writer in “industrial” terms, whereas Colin Ward's contribution to the national debate over housing, transport and planning issues is second-to-none. Oscar Wilde has been successfully rehabilitated by Stephen Fry (amongst others) but it is useful to have a reminder of his overt politics, yet his contemporary Edward Carpenter, an equally outspoken person on sexual and political matters, seems to languish in near obscurity, lacking, perhaps, Wilde's notoriety, charm and wit.

What is quite fascinating are the connections between the various writers discussed. For example, William Morris knew Edward Carpenter, Oscar Wilde knew William Morris and attended Socialist League meetings at Hammersmith, whereas John Cowper Powys was interested in writing an introduction to Tom Bell's “Wilde without Whitewash” manuscript. Powys (and Goldman) provide the link between the late Victorian writers and those who came to prominence after the First World War. Herbert Read was involved in support work for the Spanish anarchists with Emma Goldman and became involved with the Freedom Press Group. Elsewhere Aldous Huxley had the pleasure of being Eric Blair's (George Orwell) teacher at Eton for a while, later serving on the editorial board of “Realist” a journal of scientific humanism, with, amongst others Herbert Read. The main organisation however, that brought people together was the Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista (SIA), which Emma Goldman formed in London in December 1937. Huxley was approached to participate but although supportive, had recently moved to the USA and felt unable to take an active part. However John Cowper Powys, Herbert Read and George Orwell all became involved.

In 1945 Orwell, became involved with the Freedom Defence Committee (originally formed in 1944 as the Freedom Press Defence Committee to defend the editors of War Commentary who were being charged with attempting to subvert memebers of the armed forces), whilst Colin Ward had, by then, joined the Freedom Press Group, with Alex Comfort contributing articles to the paper and writing a couple of pamphlets. Which leaves us with Chris Pallis. Pallis was never involved with Freedom Press but other members of Solidarity such as Ken Weller and Nicolas Walter, were involved with the Committee of 100, the direct action anti-nuclear weapons group, alongside Freedom Press group stalwarts Alex Comfort and Herbert Read, and Nicolas Walter later became involved with Freedom itself. So a fine thread can connect all the writers, but do they end up producing a coherent set of political positions?

David Goodway, summarises the contributions each writer makes to an overall anarchist politics: from Carpenter, how the simplification of life and sexual liberation can effect radical social change, from Read, the need for liberation to begin in the classroom; Huxley brings decentralisation, alternative technology (he was an early advocate of solar power), and the yoga of love. Comfort contributes his emphasis on disobedience and personal responsibility (and I'd add his work on sexuality and “human nature”); Pallis his demystification of power and decision making (and his debunking of Bolshevism) and Ward's contention that anarchism is, if you like, how people naturally organise their lives, alongside and despite the authoritarian power structures that attempt to control and constrain them, and I'd add his insistence that people are fully capable of individually and collectively able to determine housing, planning and transport issues in a non-authoritarian way. Finally John Cowper Powys adds his life-philosophy, his simple art of everyday living and self-liberation in the here and now. There are other common themes, the total opposition to war, and in many cases violence, and also, in many cases the working for social change without the revolutionary myth that sustains much “class struggle” anarchism, (although some might argue that it is a necessary and enabling “myth”.)

There is, of course, much more in this dense and well-written book. The male bias reflects the male bias of the subject matter, but perhaps more could be said of writers such as Ethel Mannin, or the libertarian influenced feminists of the second wave of feminism. As with any such book one could quibble over who has been included, and who excluded. For example, one might query the omission of contemporary poets or novelists, but I presume this is due the fact that most have produced little explicitly political prose works. Equally one might have liked more mention of Brian Morris, who has written extensively on anthropology from an anarchist perspective, plus his works on Bakunin and Kropotkin. (A.S Neill might also have been worth further discussion, but his works are already covered by existing books on libertarian eduction.) And I suspect some people might be expecting Guy Aldred to put in an appearance too. However at 400 pages the book is plenty long enough for most readers (and at the limit as far as publishers are concerned!). Cramming more authors in would only have diluted the existing material, to its detriment.

Some of the material may be familiar to readers, as certain chapters are revised versions of works that have appeared elsewhere, in particular in David Goodway's introductions to the works of some of the authors featured. The text is complemented by an extensive, if not exhaustive, bibliography, which should provide more than enough books for readers to chase up if they find their interest in a particular author stimulated by the text. David Goodway has written an exceedingly accessible book, which I can commend to anyone interested in the strand of anarchism (or left libertarianism) he has picked out for discussion. As for the pricing, well I understand that these days the paperback price is the going rate for academic books – one wonders who pays out for the hardback editions! As ever your friendly local public library will assist those of us who find the price, even of the paperback, excessive.

8/10

Richard Alexander