Activist, economist, geographer, evolutionary theorist, and philosopher Peter Kropotkin remains one of the most important and progressive anarchist theorists, pushing anarchist thought beyond an individualist model to a theory of communal anarchism. Kropotkin and the Anarchist Intellectual Tradition seeks to rescue Kropotkin's philosophy of anarchism from the neglect that it has suffered at the hands of mainstream histories of the social and environmental sciences. Jim Mac Laughlin provides a sustained and critical reading of Kropotkin's extensive writings on the social, historical, and scientific basis of modern anarchism, giving a thorough examination of a number of key themes in Kropotkin's philosophy, including his concerted efforts to provide anarchism with an historical and scientific basis; the role of mutualism and mutual aid in social evolution and natural history; the ethics of anarchism, including the ethics of scientific research; and the anarchist critique of state-centered nationalism and other expressions of power politics.

This book provides a re-assessment of Kropotkin's political thought and suggests that the 'classical' tradition which has provided a lens for the discussion of his work has had a distorting effect on the interpretation of his ideas. By setting the analysis of his thought in a number of key historical contexts, Ruth Kinna reveals the enduring significance of his political thought and questions the usefulness of those approaches to the history of ideas that map historical changes to philosophical and theoretical shifts. One of the key arguments of the book is that Kropotkin contributed to the elaboration of an anarchist ideology, which has been badly misunderstood and which today is too often dismissed as outdated. This sympathetic but critical analysis corrects some popular myths about Kropotkin's thought, highlights the important and unique contribution he made to the history of socialist ideas and sheds new light on the nature of anarchist ideology.

Although marginal as a political force, anarchist ideas developed in Britain into a political tradition. This book explores this lost history, offering a new appraisal of the work of Kropotkin and Read, and examining the ways in which they endeavoured to articulate a politics fit for the particular challenges of Britain's modern history.

Rescues Kropotkin's philosophy of anarchism from the neglect that it has suffered in mainstream histories.

This book assesses competing modes of nation-building and nationalism through a critical reappraisal of the works of key theorists such as Benedict Anderson and Eric Hobsbawm. Exploring the processes of nation building from a variety of ethnic and social class contexts, it focuses on the contested terrains within which nationalist ideologies are often rooted. Mac Laughlin offers a theoretical and empirical analysis of nation building, taking as a case study the historical connections between Ireland and Great Britain in the clash between 'big nation' historic British nationalism on the one hand, and minority Irish nationalism on the other. Locating the origins of the historic nation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Mac Laughlin emphasises the difficulties, and specifities, of minority nationalisms in the nineteenth century. In so doing he calls for a place-centred approach which recognises the symbolic and socio-economic significance of territory to the different scales of nation-building. Exploring the evolution of Irish Nationalism, Reimaging the Nation State also shows how minority nations can challenge the hegemony of dominant states and threaten the territorial integrity of historic nations.

This handbook unites leading scholars from around the world in exploring anarchism as a political ideology, from an examination of its core principles, an analysis of its history, and an assessment of its contribution to the struggles that face humanity today. Grounded in a conceptual and historical approach, each entry charts what is distinctive about the anarchist response to particular intellectual, political, cultural and social phenomena, and considers how these values have changed over time. At its heart is a sustained process of conceptual definition and an extended examination of the core claims of this frequently misunderstood political tradition. It is the definitive scholarly reference work on anarchism as a political ideology, and should be a crucial text for scholars, students, and activists alike.