Davide Turcato – författare

For sixty years, Errico Malatesta''s involvement with international anarchism helped fuel the movement''s radical approach to class and labor, and directly impacted the workers'' movement in Italy. A talented newspaper journalist, Malatesta''s biting critiques were frequently short and to the point—and written directly to and for the workers. Though his few long-form essays, including "Anarchy" and "Our Program," have been widely available in English translation since the 1950s, the bulk of Malatesta''s most revolutionary writing remains unknown to English-speaking audiences.

In The Method of Freedom, editor Davide Turcato presents an expansive collection of Malatesta''s work, including new translations of existing works and a wealth of shorter essays translated here for the first time. Offering readers a thorough overview of the evolution of Malatesta''s revolutionary thought during his half a century as an anarchist propagandist, The Method of Freedom explores revolutionary violence and workplace democracy, the general strike and the limitations of trade unionism, propaganda by the deed, and the revolution in practice.

Errico Malatesta (1853–1932) was an enormously popular Italian anarchist, perhaps most well-known for his strong support of direct action and the general strike. A talented newspaper journalist and editor, Malatesta spent much of his life exiled from Italy because of his political beliefs.

Davide Turcato is a computational linguist and an independent historian. He is the author of Making Sense of Anarchism and the editor of Malatesta''s collected works, a ten-volume project currently underway in Italy, to be released in English by AK Press.

After escaping from forced residency on an island off the coast of Italy, Malatesta made his way to London and eventually Paterson, New Jersey, in 1899. Here, among thousands of weavers in the burgeoning silk industry, Malatesta contributed to the anarchist press and was caught up in intrigue with fellow Italian anarchists—resulting in a bullet to the leg on September 3, 1899. From the columns of Questione Sociale, he addressed the themes of organization, the anarchist program, freedom as a method, the problem of love, bourgeois influences of anarchism, and much more. Incorporating Malatesta’s articles on the American situation, unpublished interviews, and reports on French and Spanish conferences—such as those held in Cuba in March 1900—this volume demonstrates the transnational dimension of Malatesta''s activity, the breadth of his views and experiences, and his prominent role in labor and anarchist movements on both sides of the Atlantic. Includes an introduction by the late historian Nunzio Pernicone.

The original Anarchy in the U.K.

Among the concerns Malatesta addresses in this volume are the assassinations of King Humbert of Italy and President McKinley in the US. The emerging radical labor movement that was taking off in England, France, and Spain at the time, and his own imprisonment in England.