Steve J. Shone – författare

Lysander Spooner: American Anarchist is the first book-length exposition of the ideas of the American anarchist and abolitionist who lived mostly in Boston, Massachusetts, from 1808 to 1887. Few people today are familiar with Spooner. Nonetheless, there are many interesting strands of original thought to be found in his works that have contemporary significance—for example his reflections on the need for jury nullification or his devastating critique of the social contract. Rediscovering Spooner today is no mere investigation of a bygone nineteenth century thinker, but rather a gateway to a brilliant and original scholar whose counsel should not be ignored.

American Anarchism by Steve J. Shone is a work of political theory and history that focuses on 19th century anarchism in America, together with two European anarchists who influenced some of the Americans. The nine thinkers discussed are Alexander Berkman, Voltairine de Cleyre, Samuel Fielden, Luigi Galleani, Peter Kropotkin, Lucy Parsons, Max Stirner, William Graham Sumner and Benjamin Tucker. Shone emphasises the value of using ideas from 19th-century American anarchism to solve contemporary political problems.

Steve Shone 's Women of Liberty explores the many overlaps between ten radical, feminist, and anarchist thinkers: Tennie C. Claflin, Noe Itō, Louise Michel, Rose Pesotta, Margaret Sanger, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mollie Steimer, Lois Waisbrooker, Mercy Otis Warren, and Victoria C. Woodhull. In an age of great and understandable dissatisfaction with governments around the world, Shone illuminates both the lost wisdom of the anarchists and the considerable contribution of women to intellectual thought, influences that are currently missing from many classes documenting the history of political theory.

Rose Summerfield: Australian Radical outlines the largely forgotten achievements of this overlooked labor union activist and socialist sympathetic to anarchist, feminist, and secularist ideas: a dynamic speaker, who eventually emigrated to Paraguay to live on a utopian commune called Cosme. In this first book-length study of Summerfield, Shone supplements existing scholarship with new information, revealing to a much fuller extent Summerfield’s contributions to radical thought, documenting the substantial scope of her contributions to women’s rights activism in New South Wales in the 1890s, a topic that has previously been almost completely ignored.

Steve Shone’s Women of Liberty explores the many overlaps between ten radical, feminist, and anarchist thinkers: Tennie C. Claflin, Noe Itō, Louise Michel, Rose Pesotta, Margaret Sanger, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mollie Steimer, Lois Waisbrooker, Mercy Otis Warren, and Victoria C. Woodhull. In an age of great and understandable dissatisfaction with governments around the world, Shone illuminates both the lost wisdom of the anarchists and the considerable contribution of women to intellectual thought, influences that are currently missing from many classes documenting the history of political theory.

Jeannette Rankin, the first woman to serve in the U.S. Congress, has understandably been celebrated for improving government diversity. However, she did not fit in comfortably with that body’s chauvinistic routine, encountering hostility to her ideas, to her gender, and even to her presence during the two terms that she was able to serve. It is the claim of the present work that she is better understood as a radical: a feminist, a pacifist, an advocate for the rights of the poor, a supporter of Irish nationalism, an American Civil Liberties Union leader, and a keen labor union ally.

Dangerous Anarchist Strikes explores the ideas of three largely forgotten radical women who participated in labor union strikes in Argentina and Uruguay, Canada, and the United States: Virginia Bolten (c.1876-1960), one of the most militant anarchists of southern South America; Helen Armstrong (1875-1947), a major leader of the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, whose involvement in that important event in Canadian history was, for a long time, obscured by accounts that emphasized the accomplishments of men; and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (1890-1964), the Wobbly leader who directed many industrial strikes throughout the United States, and was one of the founders of the American Civil Liberties Union, who eventually became the leader of the Communist Party, USA.The book also examines the contributions of two similarly neglected anarchist men who participated in labor union strikes and industrial action in New Zealand, Australia, Chile, Argentina, and Japan. Tom Barker (1887-1970), who was an anarchist who eventually became a socialist, worked to promote labor unionism on four continents, and who tried to create a global One Big Union for sailors. Kōtoku, Shūsui (1871-1911) was a liberal who became a socialist and finally an anarchist. An opponent of governmental imperialism and ecological mismanagement, he studied and translated the works of Western thinkers and sought to apply what he learned from other cultures to the development of Japan.