In the late nineteenth through mid-twentieth centuries, the anarchist effort to promote free thought, individual liberty, and social equality relied upon an international Spanish-language print network. These channels for journalism and literature promoted anarchist ideas and practices while fostering transnational solidarity and activism from Buenos Aires to Los Angeles to Barcelona.Christopher J. Castañeda and Montse Feu edit a collection that examines many facets of Spanish-language anarchist history. Arranged chronologically and thematically, the essays investigate anarchist print culture's transatlantic origins; Latina/o labor-oriented anarchism in the United States; the anarchist print presence in locales like Mexico's borderlands and Steubenville, Ohio; the history of essential publications and the individuals behind them; and the circulation of anarchist writing from the Spanish-American War to the twenty-first century.
Anarchism in the United States was so misunderstood and feared in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that governmental authorities at all levels worked their hardest to obliterate it, smash its presses and deport or imprison its leaders. Government mail censors, G-men, local sheriffs, not to mention political hacks and journalists were so successful in their persecution that most of the documents necessary to study this idealistic, social justice movement were destroyed and are still missing today. The editors and authors of the well documented, enlightening essays in Writing Revolution have done the yeomen's work of tracking down a good portion of this legacy that was so important in educating workers and establishing the rights they still vouchsafe today. Casta+¦eda and Feu, inveterate researchers into Latino history and identity, have taken the lead in restoring the role played by Spanish-language anarchist print in the development of Latino working-class culture. That the editors and writers here were able to trace the transnational networks of the Hispanic anarchists, as well as locate and study such a large sampling of their periodicals and documents has not only the potential of filling gaps in our history but also of providing a whole new corpus of texts that will put a lie to the concept that only the victors get to tell their stories. Casta+¦eda, Feu, and their collaborators have restored the testimonies of so many activists and organic intellectuals that it will take many other scholars years to follow up on and study their discoveries.--Nicol+ís Kanellos, author of Hispanic Immigrant Literature: El Sue+¦o del Retorno
