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From: "Ivy, James" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 3:11 pm
Subject: H-SHGAPE Review: English on Goyens, _Beer and Revolution_
To: [log in to unmask]

> H-NET BOOK REVIEW
> Published by [log in to unmask] (May 2008)
>
> Tom Goyens. _Beer and Revolution: The German Anarchist Movement
> in New
> York City, 1880-1914_. Urbana and Chicago: University of Chicago
> Press,2007. 263 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography,
> index. $40.00
> (cloth), ISBN 987-0-252-03175-5.
>
> Reviewed for H-SHGAPE by Beth English, Woodrow Wilson School of Public
> and International Affairs, Princeton University
>
> Anarchism Uncovered
>
> In late February 2008, authorities found an unknown substance in
> a Las
> Vegas hotel room--with a comatose man, guns, and an "anarchist-type
> textbook"--that tests later confirmed was the deadly poison
> ricin. A
> week later, New York investigators announced that the bomb-throwing
> cyclist who damaged a Times Square military recruiting office
> likely had
> ties to a New York anarchist group. These recent events garnering
> national headlines and the rapt attention of 24-hour news
> junkies only
> served to reinforce the popular perception of anarchism as a shadowy,
> dangerous movement. This view of anarchism is anything but new,
> but as
> Tom Goyens illustrates in his book, _Beer and Revolution: The German
> Anarchist Movement in New York City, 1880-1914_, it is also
> anything but
> complete. Goyens takes the reader to turn-of-the-century New York
> beerhalls, saloons, and public parks where anarchism was not
> just an
> alternative, anti-institutionalist, and anti-authoritarian political
> ideology, but a culture consciously crafted and practiced. By
> analyzingthe intersections of political thought and social
> spaces, of abstract
> ideas and lived experiences among German anarchists, Goyens
> contributesin a meaningful way to a broader understanding of
> radicalism in urban
> America.
>
> Goyens's focus on German anarchists in New York City brings a largely
> overlooked group of Gilded Age radicals into view. His skillful
> biographical sketches of German anarchist leaders and
> discussions of
> ideological debates and infighting that occurred within the movement
> highlight the contributions New Yorkers made to the evolution of
> anarchist political thought in America, and of the importance of
> personalities in the development of social movements, radical or
> otherwise. Though his narrative bogs down at times with lengthy
> descriptions of ideological nuances and differences between various
> anarchist factions, Goyens does succeed in making the bigger
> point that
> anarchism, when analyzed from within rather than in comparison
> to the
> mainstream, was not a universal, monolithic radical movement.
> The German
> anarchist community in New York itself was not "homogeneous,
> single-minded, well-oiled" but "fractured" and "loosely
> connected" (p.
> 112).
>
> New York's German anarchists never gained a significant level of
> visibility. Unlike anarchists in Chicago and the associated
> agitation of
> the International Working People's Association there, New York
> anarchists did not connect in a meaningful way with or make a palpable
> impact on the labor movement in the industrial corridor of
> greater New
> York City. German anarchists did not lead spectacular strikes
> nor did
> they organize a political party or leave a legacy of legislative
> success. These factors partly explain the absence of the New York
> anarchists from the historiography of radicalism. But as Goyens points
> out, political activism and labor agitation were not the focus
> of New
> York's German anarchists. In fact, it was the New Yorkers'
> opposition to
> utilizing electoral politics and trade unionism as vehicles for change
> that fueled antagonisms between them and their Chicago counterparts.
> Still, Goyens contends that the New York anarchists' lack of public
> visibility and measurable successes does not mean that they
> should be
> ignored, but rather understood as a subgroup of American
> radicals and as
> a part of the social, cultural, and political milieu that was
> turn-of-the-century New York.
>
> Taking a page from the playbook of James Scott, Goyens looks to the
> spaces created by anarchists and imbued with anarchist ideology
> in order
> to uncover the character and hidden transcripts of the German
> anarchistmovement. German anarchists in New York, Goyens
> observed, created a
> "self-sufficient culture of defiance" which "existed physically
> in a
> space replete with its own signifiers, symbols, and rituals" (p. 6).
> Consciously set apart from the mainstream, this geopolitical
> space of
> clubs, saloons, beer halls, and picnic groves were part and
> parcel of
> the oppositional nature of the movement. Physical spaces, Goyens
> maintains, are therefore as important as, if not more important than,
> the New York anarchists' public undertakings. To understand and
> appreciate the German anarchist movement in New York on its own terms,
> one must grasp these spaces, their political role, and the identity
> derived from them.
>
> Goyens deftly illustrates how radical insignias, flags, and
> memorials to
> fallen comrades were important elements defining anarchist
> spaces. These
> spaces, moreover, were safe havens for anarchists to engage in
> politicaldiscussions and exchange radical literature. However,
> they also were
> physical manifestations of anarchist political ideology where
> anarchismcould be "lived and expressed" (p. 58). Anarchist
> saloons, for instance,
> were small, autonomous, and egalitarian. Anarchist theater
> performances,song, and poetry similarly expressed provocative
> themes of resistance
> and revolution under the guise of innocent entertainment. While the
> products of a self-conscious exercise in insularity that likely
> contributed to mainstream America's conceptualizations of
> anarchists as
> dangerous others, according to Goyens, anarchists' alternative spaces
> and activities undertaken therein "were anarchism" (p. 58).
>
> Certainly, knowledge of bomb-making and violent acts of
> "propaganda by
> deed" had a place within the German anarchist movement and its
> objectiveof bringing about revolutionary change. Yet as Goyens
> shows, leaders of
> the movement perceived such actions not as terroristic but as
> self-defense. For the New York anarchists, words too were weapons.
> Verbal "posturing" was a "form of resistance" (p. 4). Giving
> words their
> just due, Goyens impressively weaves the story of the
> development of an
> anarchist press in the United States through his narrative. As
> he notes
> in his introduction, a significant number of anarchist
> periodicals from
> the time period in question, albeit largely printed in German, are
> available and Goyens uses the cultural news and reviews they contained
> as important sources for unmasking the geography of the anarchist
> movement in New York. The content of and language used in the "juicy
> editorials and news" of these periodicals, however, are for the most
> part absent from his analysis (p. 14). This leaves the reader
> with only
> a hazy impression of the power and use of rhetoric, inflammatory or
> otherwise, and how this rhetoric complemented the creation of
> German-anarchist identity through the appropriation of space.
>
> Although New York's German anarchists embraced a radical political
> ideology, created an alternative political culture, and
> supported a
> vigorous press, they were nonetheless part of the city's larger German
> immigrant community rooted in Little Germany on the Lower East Side.
> From language- and a craft-based approach to work and leisure,
> to gender
> norms and drinking customs, ties of commonality existed between German
> anarchists and non-anarchists alike. It is clear from Goyens's
> analysisthat New York's German anarchists negotiated multiple
> layers of
> identity, but their interactions over time within the wider German
> immigrant community go largely unexplored. Was theirs an uneasy
> or even
> hostile co-existence? Or, did the commonalities of "a common
> language, a
> love for beer and music, and a sense of ethnic pride" neutralize
> differences of political ideology so that a radical subculture could
> function (p. 22)? What can we learn about the character of the German
> anarchist movement which, as Goyens notes, advocated
> egalitarianism but
> that struggled with questions of gender equality in marriage and
> societyand that remained "largely a men's affair" rooted in a
> male-dominated
> culture of saloons and clubs (p. 155)? More on this radical-mainstream
> relationship within the German immigrant community would have enhanced
> Goyens's already strong work, especially because the anarchist spaces
> that were so essential to the movement's identity were not
> located in a
> separate "anarchist" neighborhood, but rather were peppered throughout
> the German immigrant neighborhoods of greater New York City.
>
> On the other hand, Goyens does explore how patterns of immigration
> changed the culture and character of New York's German anarchist
> movement over time. The German presence among New York's anarchists
> ebbed and flowed with prevailing U.S. immigration trends. The
> proportionof Germans emigrating to the United States decreased
> by the turn of the
> century while immigrants arriving from southeastern Europe and Russia
> increased substantially, so that in sheer numbers, German anarchists
> played a less visible part in New York's broader anarchist
> movement. The
> 1890 repeal of the Anti-Socialist Act in Germany curbed the flow of
> German radicals emigrating to the United States so that by the late
> 1890s, key participants in New York's German anarchist movement
> shiftedfrom first-generation German-speaking immigrants to younger,
> American-born, second-generation German anarchists. By the first
> decadeof the new century, German anarchism was one part of a more
> collaborative multi-ethnic movement. Coinciding with this shift,
> intellectual rebellion rather than violent revolution gained primacy
> within the movement as the best means to bring about radical
> change, and
> an active radical press replaced saloons and clubs as oppositional
> spaces where anarchist ideals were celebrated and ideas were shared.
>
> State and federal legislation targeting anarchists enacted in
> the wake
> of the assassination of President McKinley by a purported
> anarchist, as
> well as the repression of Germans and radicals during World War I,
> further undercut the viability and physical presence of a definable
> German anarchist movement in New York. By the mid-1930s a definable
> German anarchist movement was all but gone. This lack of
> permanency of
> New York's German anarchist institutions brings up difficult questions
> about the meaning and value of space as an analytical tool for
> uncovering the history of anarchism. Goyens poses the question
> if, "In
> the context of the dominant (capitalist) organization of urban
> space....Did anarchists actually subvert capitalist normality?"
> but leaves the
> reader to decide (p. 181).
>
> Still, _Beer and Revolution_ does contribute new information to
> and a
> new way of approaching the history of anarchism and radicalism.
> And as
> voters ponder their choices of candidates in the 2008 presidential
> election, Goyens's work is a valuable reminder of the rich and varied
> debates that informed and shaped American politics in the not-so-
> distantpast. But perhaps most importantly, Goyens, in discussing the
> transnational nature of the anarchist movement, observes that "[t]he
> marketplace of ideas ignores national borders" (p. 3). This is a
> statement that is as instructive and thought-provoking in our own
> time--when national borders are becoming increasingly irrelevant and
> grassroots opposition movements are developing in the face of
> globalization--as it was for German radicals during the Gilded
> Age and
> Progressive Era.
>
>
>
>
>
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Jack Blocker
History, Huron University College
The University of Western Ontario
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