Kenyon Zimmer – författare

From the 1880s through the 1940s, tens of thousands of first- and second-generation immigrants embraced the anarchist cause after arriving on American shores. Kenyon Zimmer explores why these migrants turned to anarchism, and how their adoption of its ideology shaped their identities, experiences, and actions.  Zimmer focuses on Italians and Eastern European Jews in San Francisco, New York City, and Paterson, New Jersey. Tracing the movement's changing fortunes from the pre–World War I era through the Spanish Civil War, Zimmer argues that anarchists, opposed to both American and Old World nationalism, severed all attachments to their nations of origin but also resisted assimilation into their host society. Their radical cosmopolitan outlook and identity instead embraced diversity and extended solidarity across national, ethnic, and racial divides. Though ultimately unable to withstand the onslaught of Americanism and other nationalisms, the anarchist movement nonetheless provided a shining example of a transnational collective identity delinked from the nation-state and racial hierarchies.

Jewish anarchism has long been marginalized in histories of anarchist thought and action. Anna Elena Torres and Kenyon Zimmer edit a collection of essays which recovers many aspects of this erased tradition. Contributors bring to light the presence and persistence of Jewish anarchism throughout histories of radical labor, women’s studies, political theory, multilingual literature, and ethnic studies. These essays reveal an ongoing engagement with non-Jewish radical cultures, including the translation practices of the Jewish anarchist press. Jewish anarchists drew from a matrix of secular, cultural, and religious influences, inventing new anarchist forms that ranged from mystical individualism to militantly atheist revolutionary cells. With Freedom in Our Ears brings together more than a dozen scholars and translators to write the first collaborative history of international, multilingual, and transdisciplinary Jewish anarchism.

From the 1880s through the 1940s, tens of thousands of first- and second-generation immigrants embraced the anarchist cause after arriving on American shores. Kenyon Zimmer explores why these migrants turned to anarchism, and how their adoption of its ideology shaped their identities, experiences, and actions.  Zimmer focuses on Italians and Eastern European Jews in San Francisco, New York City, and Paterson, New Jersey. Tracing the movement's changing fortunes from the pre–World War I era through the Spanish Civil War, Zimmer argues that anarchists, opposed to both American and Old World nationalism, severed all attachments to their nations of origin but also resisted assimilation into their host society. Their radical cosmopolitan outlook and identity instead embraced diversity and extended solidarity across national, ethnic, and racial divides. Though ultimately unable to withstand the onslaught of Americanism and other nationalisms, the anarchist movement nonetheless provided a shining example of a transnational collective identity delinked from the nation-state and racial hierarchies.

Jewish anarchism has long been marginalized in histories of anarchist thought and action. Anna Elena Torres and Kenyon Zimmer edit a collection of essays which recovers many aspects of this erased tradition. Contributors bring to light the presence and persistence of Jewish anarchism throughout histories of radical labor, women’s studies, political theory, multilingual literature, and ethnic studies. These essays reveal an ongoing engagement with non-Jewish radical cultures, including the translation practices of the Jewish anarchist press. Jewish anarchists drew from a matrix of secular, cultural, and religious influences, inventing new anarchist forms that ranged from mystical individualism to militantly atheist revolutionary cells. With Freedom in Our Ears brings together more than a dozen scholars and translators to write the first collaborative history of international, multilingual, and transdisciplinary Jewish anarchism.

The Industrial Workers of the World is a union unlike any other. Founded in 1905 in Chicago, it rapidly gained members across the world thanks to its revolutionary, internationalist outlook. By using powerful organising methods including direct-action and direct-democracy, it put power in the hands of workers. This philosophy is labeled as ‘revolutionary industrial unionism’ and the members called, affectionately, ‘Wobblies’. This book is the first to look at the history of the IWW from an international perspective. Bringing together a group of leading scholars, it includes lively accounts from a number diverse countries including Australia, Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Sweden and Ireland, which reveal a fascinating story of global anarchism, syndicalism and socialism. Drawing on many important figures of the movements such as Tom Barker, Har Dayal, Joe Hill, James Larkin and William D. "Big Bill" Haywood, and exploring particular industries including shipping, mining, and agriculture, this book describes how the IWW and its ideals travelled around the world.

The Industrial Workers of the World is a union unlike any other. Founded in 1905 in Chicago, it rapidly gained members across the world thanks to its revolutionary, internationalist outlook. By using powerful organising methods including direct-action and direct-democracy, it put power in the hands of workers. This philosophy is labeled as ‘revolutionary industrial unionism’ and the members called, affectionately, ‘Wobblies’. This book is the first to look at the history of the IWW from an international perspective. Bringing together a group of leading scholars, it includes lively accounts from a number diverse countries including Australia, Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Sweden and Ireland, which reveal a fascinating story of global anarchism, syndicalism and socialism. Drawing on many important figures of the movements such as Tom Barker, Har Dayal, Joe Hill, James Larkin and William D. "Big Bill" Haywood, and exploring particular industries including shipping, mining, and agriculture, this book describes how the IWW and its ideals travelled around the world.

Approaching the early decades of the “Iron Curtain” with new questions and perspectives, this important book examines the political and cultural implications of the communists’ international initiatives. Building on recent scholarship and working from new archival sources, the seven contributors to this volume study various effects of international outreach—personal, technological, and cultural—on the population and politics of the Soviet bloc. Several authors analyze lesser-known complications of East-West exchange; others show the contradictory nature of Moscow’s efforts to consolidate its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and in the Third World.An outgrowth of the forty-sixth annual Walter Prescott Webb Lectures, hosted in 2011 by the University of Texas at Arlington, Cold War Crossings features diverse focuses with a unifying theme.

In Deportation in the Americas: Histories of Exclusion and Resistance, editors Kenyon Zimmer and Cristina Salinas have compiled seven essays, adapted from the Walter Prescott Webb Memorial Lecture Series, that deeply consider deportation policy in the Americas and its global effects.These thoughtful pieces significantly contribute to a growing historiography on deportation within immigration studies—a field that usually focuses on arriving immigrants and their adaptation. All contributors have expanded their analysis to include transnational and global histories, while recognizing that immigration policy is firmly developed within the structure of the nation-state. Thus, the authors do not abandon national peculiarity regarding immigration policy, but as Emily Pope-Obeda observes, “from its very inception, immigration restriction was developed with one eye looking outward.” Contributors note that deportation policy can signal friendship or cracks within the relationships between nations.Rather than solely focusing on immigration policy in the abstract, the authors remain cognizant of the very real effects domestic immigration policies have on deportees and push readers to think about how the mobility and lives of individuals come to be controlled by the state, as well as the ways in which immigrants and their allies have resisted and challenged deportation. From the development of the concept of an “anchor baby” to continued policing of those who are foreign-born, Deportation in the Americas is an essential resource for understanding this critical and timely topic.