Volume 4, Number 4 · March 25, 1965
Beyond the Fringe
By George Lichtheim
The Anarchists
by James Joll
Little, Brown, 303 pp., $6.00
Dreamers, Dynamiters and Demagogues
by Max Nomad
Walden Press, 251 pp., $5.00
Anarchism, like Anabaptism, has become respectable. In its heyday the movement had a uniformly bad press, aside from being treated as dangerous by governments and police authorities. Now that it no longer exists—for in its pure form it died with the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s—its legendary founders benefit from the indulgence commonly extended to the defeated. This is an old story. If there were any Albigensians around today, one may be sure the Pope would be polite to them—he might even invite them to attend the next session of the Vatican Council. It is too bad they were all exterminated in that thirteenth-century Crusade (the only one that achieved its aim—all the others were military failures). Anabaptism too no longer terrifies. The spiritual descendants of Thomas Muenzer and John of Leyden are today's liberal Protestants. Who can imagine anyone calling for their blood? Luther thought Muenzer a child of Satan, and Muenzer repaid the compliment. Nowadays, Lutherans and Unitarians are more likely to invite each other to tea than to fling excommunications around.
Review, 2425 words
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