Max Nettlau, born on the 30th of April in 1865, was an anarchist historian whose biographical subjects included Bakunin, Malatesta, and Élisée Reclus. His enormous collection of primary materials is held by the International Institute of Social History.
Max Nettlau was born in Neuwaldegg (Austria) to an affluent family. Nettlau’s skepticism of state authority began at a young age; his memoirs state that, even as a child, he ‘somehow considered the supporter of any government system as a seriously defective person’.
Formally, Nettlau studied linguistics, authoring his doctoral thesis on the Welsh language. While a student in London, he became a member of the Socialist League, the only organization he was ever to join according to the International Institute of Social History (IISG).
As an anarchist activist, Nettlau wrote articles for John Most’s Freiheit and befriended famous anarchists such as Peter Kropotkin, Elisée Reclus, and Errico Malatesta.
Nettlau was an avid collector of materials of social movements. Not just manuscripts by anarchist authors (although original texts by Bakunin became a part of his collection), but the actual pamphlets, bulletins, and papers of social movements themselves.
Among Nettlau’s works as an author are the first major biography of Michael Bakunin, biographies of anarchists Elisée Reclus and Errico Malatesta, and a seven volume work on the history of anarchism. A significantly shorter, one volume version is available in English as “A Short History of Anarchism”.
In 1935, Nettlau sold his archive (described by the IISH as “enormous”) to the newly found International Institute of Social History, where it remains to this day.
Nettlau died 1944 from stomach cancer in Amsterdam, having fled his native Austria follow the country’s “Anschluss” to Nazi Germany in 1938.
“Do I want to propose my own system? Not at all! I am an advocate of all systems, i.e. of all forms of government that find followers.”
- Max Nettlau in “PANARCHY. A Forgotten Idea of 1860” (1905)
A Short History of Anarchism by Max Nettlau
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my mom, a turbo-lib who helped work phones and shit for the clintons back in the day and who probably eats MSNBC for breakfast raised by a catholic Zionist who thought israel was some wonder-state and needed for the end of the world
haven’t talked to her about ANY of the palestine stuff. but she immediately agreed with me when i brought it up that Israel was a nazi state basically. like she said “yes they are basically a nazi state now and they are genociding palestinians”
hasbara, et al: you guys have lost my MOM you are fucked