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Shortly after the first issue of Turning the Tide went to print in February, we were saddened to learn that Paul Avrich, the world’s foremost anarchist historian, died on Feb. 16. He was 74 years old.
Avrich, who was born in New York City on Aug. 4, 1931, received his B.A. from Cornell University in 1952 and his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1961. He taught at Queens College of the City University of New York and at Columbia University. He was also a Guggenheim fellow at Columbia University in 1967-68 and a National Endowment for the Humanities senior fellow in 1972-73. In 1984, Avrich won the Philip Taft Labor History Award. In addition to this, his work was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize on several occasions.
Avrich’s work focused on Russian and American anarchists, and his tremendous outpouring of literature has helped immensely to preserve and carry the history of anarchist struggles into the new millennium. His dissertation, “The Russian Revolution and Factory Committees,” was published by Columbia in 1961. In 1967, he published “The Russian Anarchists,” his first book dealing with the history of anarchism. Thereafter, he published several other books dealing with Sacco and Vanzetti, the Kronstadt Rebellion, the Haymarket Tragedy, and the Modern School Movement. His book “Anarchist Voices,” which presents the oral histories of 180 anarchists and their associates, friends, and relatives, is an indispensable contribution to the history of labor radicalism in the United States.
Before he died, Avrich donated his collection of nearly twenty thousand twentieth-century American and European anarchist publications and manuscripts to the Library of Congress. The Paul Avrich Collection includes much notable material pertaining to Emma Goldman, Mollie Steimer, and other radical feminists and female anarchists.
Avrich’s work serves an inspiration to those who care deeply about advancing social justice through their scholarly efforts. His contributions to the history of anarchism are as rich and intellectually rewarding as the works of Voline, Rudolf Rocker, George Woodcock, and Daniel Guérin. Although we never knew him personally, he will be missed.
In January, AK Press announced the republication of Avrich’s long-out-of-print histories of anarchism. You can visit AK Press online at: http://www.akpress.org/ Select Bibliography for Paul Avrich - The Russian Anarchists, Princeton University Press, 1967.
- Kronstadt 1921, Princeton University Press, 1970.
- Russian Rebels, 1600-1800, Schocken, 1972.
- An American Anarchist: The Life of Voltairine de Cleyre, Princeton University Press, 1978.
- The Modern School Movement: Anarchism and Education in the United States, Princeton University Press, 1980.
- The Haymarket Tragedy, Princeton University, 1984.
- Bakunin & Nechaev, Freedom Press, 1987.
- Anarchist Portraits, Princeton University, 1988.
- Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background, Princeton University, 1991.
- Anarchist Voices: An Oral History Of Anarchism in America, Princeton University, 1996.
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