In the last few years, anarchism has been rediscovered as a transnational, cosmopolitan and multifaceted movement. Its traditions, often hastily dismissed, are increasingly revealing insights which inspire present-day scholarship in geography. This book provides a historical geography of anarchism, analysing the places and spatiality of historical anarchist movements, key thinkers, and the present scientific challenges of the geographical anarchist traditions. This volume offers rich and detailed insights into the lesser-known worlds of anarchist geographies with contributions from international leading experts. It also explores the historical geographies of anarchism by examining their expressions in a series of distinct geographical contexts and their development over time. Contributions examine the changes that the anarchist movement(s) sought to bring out in their space and time, and the way this spirit continues to animate the anarchist geographies of our own, perhaps often in unpredictable ways. There is also an examination of contemporary expressions of anarchist geographical thought in the fields of social movements, environmental struggles, post-statist geographies, indigenous thinking and situated cosmopolitanisms. This is valuable reading for students and researchers interested in historical geography, political geography, social movements and anarchism.

The Anarchist Roots of Geography sets the stage for a radical politics of possibility and freedom through a discussion of the insurrectionary geographies that suffuse our daily experiences. By embracing anarchist geographies as kaleidoscopic spatialities that allow for nonhierarchical connections between autonomous entities, Simon Springer configures a new political imagination. Experimentation in and through space is the story of humanity’s place on the planet, and the stasis and control that now supersede ongoing organizing experiments are an affront to our survival. Singular ontological modes that favor one particular way of doing things disavow geography by failing to understand the spatial as a mutable assemblage intimately bound to temporality. Even worse, such stagnant ideas often align to the parochial interests of an elite minority and thereby threaten to be our collective undoing. What is needed is the development of new relationships with our world and, crucially, with each other. By infusing our geographies with anarchism we unleash a spirit of rebellion that foregoes a politics of waiting for change to come at the behest of elected leaders and instead engages new possibilities of mutual aid through direct action now. We can no longer accept the decaying, archaic geographies of hierarchy that chain us to statism, capitalism, gender domination, racial oppression, and imperialism. We must reorient geographical thinking towards anarchist horizons of possibility. Geography must become beautiful, wherein the entirety of its embrace is aligned to emancipation.

The last two decades have seen a re-birth of practices and principles that connect with the ‘soul’ of left-libertarianism, although they may not explicitly engage with the anarchist tradition. From practices of mapping and land-use planning to local protests and transnational social movements, this book explores a variety of case studies that trace the influences of, and affinities between, anarchist and geographic practice. The chapters explore the vast possibilities of inventive, exploratory libertarian practices from contemporary and historic contexts around the globe. They examine the ways in which various spatial practices have been compatible with left-libertarian principles, and explore the extent to which anarchists, neo-anarchists and libertarian autonomists have animated these waves of protest and forms of resistance. In an age that is desperately in need of critical new directions, this volume shows that a serious (re)turn toward anarchist thought and practice can challenge and inspire geographers to travel beyond their traditional frontiers of geographical praxis. .

This book provides a historical account of anarchist geographies in the UK and the implications for current practice. It looks at the works of Frenchman Élisée Reclus (1830–1905) and Russian Pyotr Kropotkin (1842–1921) which were cultivated during their exile in Britain and Ireland. Anarchist geographies have recently gained considerable interest across scholarly disciplines. Many aspects of the international anarchist tradition remain little-known and English-speaking scholarship remains mostly impenetrable to authors. Inspired by approaches in historiography and mobilities, this book links print culture and Reclus and Kropotkin’s spheres in Britain and Ireland. The author draws on primary sources, biographical links and political circles to establish the early networks of anarchist geographies. Their social, cultural and geographical context played a decisive role in the formation and dissemination of anarchist ideas on geographies of social inequalities, anti-colonialism, anti-racism, feminism, civil liberties, animal rights and ‘humane’ or humanistic approaches to socialism. This book will be relevant to anarchist geographers and is recommended supplementary reading for individuals studying historical geography, history, geopolitics and anti-colonialism.

This book provides rich and detailed insights into the lesser-known worlds of anarchist geography. It explores the historical geography of anarchism by examining its expression in a series of distinct geographical contexts and its development over time. The book explores the changes that the anarchist movement(s) sought to bring out in their spa

Part one of an innovative trilogy on anarchist geography, this volume examines the potential of anarchist pedagogic practices for geographic knowledge

This new dictionary provides over 2,000 clear and concise entries on human geography, covering basic terms and concepts as well as biographies, organisations, and major periods and schools. Authoritative and accessible, this is a must-have for every student of human geography, as well as for professionals and interested members of the public.