New York City's identity as a cultural and artistic center, as a point of arrival for millions of immigrants sympathetic to anarchist ideas, and as a hub of capitalism made the city a unique and dynamic terrain for anarchist activity. For 150 years, Gotham's cosmopolitan setting created a unique interplay between anarchism's human actors and an urban space that invites constant reinvention. Tom Goyens gathers essays that demonstrate anarchism's endurance as a political and cultural ideology and movement in New York from the 1870s to 2011. The authors cover the gamut of anarchy's emergence in and connection to the city. Some offer important new insights on German, Yiddish, Italian, and Spanish-speaking anarchists. Others explore anarchism's influence on religion, politics, and the visual and performing arts. A concluding essay looks at Occupy Wall Street's roots in New York City's anarchist tradition. Contributors: Allan Antliff, Marcella Bencivenni, Caitlin Casey, Christopher J. Castañeda, Andrew Cornell, Heather Gautney, Tom Goyens, Anne Klejment, Alan W. Moore, Erin Wallace, and Kenyon Zimmer.| Cover Title Copyright Dedication Contents Introduction - Tom Goyens Johann Most and the German Anarchists - Tom Goyens Saul Yanovsky and Yiddish Anarchism on the Lower East Side - Kenyon Zimmer Fired by the Ideal: Italian Anarchists in New York City, 1880s–1920s - Marcella Bencivenni Times of Propaganda and Struggle: El Despertar and Brooklyn's Spanish Anarchists, 1890–1905 Christop From Union Square to Heaven: Dorothy Day and the Origin of Catholic Worker Anarchism - Anne Klejment New Wind: The Why?/Resistance Group and the Roots of Contemporary Anarchism, 1942–1954 - Andrew Cornel Poetic Tension: The Aesthetic Politics of the Living Theatre - Allan Antliff Up against the Wall Motherfucker: Ideology and Action in a "Street Gang with an Analysis" - Caitlin Casey Gordon Matta­Clark's Anarchitecture - Erin Wallace ABC No Rio as an Anarchist Space - Alan W. Moore The Influence of Anarchism in Occupy Wall Street - Heather Gautney List of Contributors Index | "With its chapters on labor, class, gender, culture, and prefigurative politics, this is a cutting-edge synthesis that shows how anarchism survived from the 1880s to the present in New York City—one of the central nodes in global anarchist networks."—Kirwin Shaffer, coeditor of In Defiance of Boundaries: Anarchism in Latin American History

"This volume will be essential reading to anyone interested in American anarchist history....In addition to the essays' overall high quality, the book's (well-organized!) footnotes provide useful fodder for future research." —The Journal of American History

"Overall, the collection makes a good contribution to the study of radicalism. It breaks new historiographical ground and it is well written and cohesive. It is suitable for an undergraduate or graduate class on American social movements or anarchism." —Journal for the Study of Radicalism

|Tom Goyens is an associate professor of history at Salisbury University. He is the author of Beer and Revolution: The German Anarchist Movement in New York City, 1880-1914.