Tom Goyens Johann Most biografie recensie, review en informatie boek over het leven van een radicaal en anarchist. Op 9 december 2025 verschijnt bij University of Illinois Press de biografie van Johan Most, de Duits-Amerikaanse anarchist en politicus Johann Most. Een Nederlandse vertaling van het boek is niet verkrijgbaar.
Tom Goyens Johann Most biografie review en recensie
- “Goyens’ book expertly demolishes myths and caricatures, while uniting the German and American halves of Johann Most’s radical career through a meticulously documented transnational biography. Most emerges in the text as a formidable thinker as well as an electrifying activist.” (Kenyon Zimmer, coeditor of With Freedom in Our Ears: Histories of Jewish Anarchism)
- “Goyens comprehensively follows Most’s development from childhood to adulthood and his activity in Europe and the US. Most’s militancy helped create the stereotype of the anarchist as terrorist. Yet he was a complex figure whose interventions shed important light on the twists and turns in socialist politics and illuminate his shift from social democracy to anarchism.” (Ruth Kinna, author of The Government of No One: The Theory and Practice of Anarchism)
Johann Most
Life of a Radical
- Auteur: Tom Goyens (Verenigde Staten)
- Soort boek: biografie van de Duits-Amerikaanse anarchist
- Taal: Engels
- Uitgever: University of Illinois Press
- Verschijnt: 12 december 2025
- Omvang: 296 pagina’s
- Uitgave: paperback / gebonden boek / ebook
- Prijs: $ 29,95 / $ 125,00 / $ 14,95
- Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris
Flaptekst van de biografie van Johann Most, de Duits-Amerikaanse anarchist en politicus
Known best for articulating the propaganda of the deed, Johann Most was and still is caricatured as a radical fanatic. Tom Goyens’ in-depth biography rediscovers the complexities that animated the German American agitator and made him a pivotal figure in the development of anarchism in the US and socialism in Germany.
Most galvanized workers through passionate speeches and writings that showcased his gifts as a performer, satirist, and rhetorician. Numerous challenges, including repeated convictions for his incendiary rhetoric, failed to curb his organizing or his efforts to foster a dedicated network of comrades that included Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and his common-law wife, Helene Minkin. Goyens details Most’s essential contributions to the anarchist movement while also highlighting his critique of religion and defense of science within emancipatory movements. As Goyens follows Most’s ideological journey, he illuminates the political contexts that shaped the anarchist’s evolving views on revolutionary action and social change.
Comprehensive and long overdue, Johann Most traces the intellectual life and enduring relevance of a misunderstood radical figure.
Tom Goyens is a professor of history at Salisbury University. He is the author of Beer and Revolution: The German Anarchist Movement in New York City, 1880–1914.
