Max Nettlau, born on the 30th of April in 1865, was an anarchist historian whose biographical subjects included Bakunin, Malatesta, and Élisée Reclus. His enormous collection of primary materials is held by the International Institute of Social History.
Max Nettlau was born in Neuwaldegg (Austria) to an affluent family. Nettlau’s skepticism of state authority began at a young age; his memoirs state that, even as a child, he ‘somehow considered the supporter of any government system as a seriously defective person’.
Formally, Nettlau studied linguistics, authoring his doctoral thesis on the Welsh language. While a student in London, he became a member of the Socialist League, the only organization he was ever to join according to the International Institute of Social History (IISG).
As an anarchist activist, Nettlau wrote articles for John Most’s Freiheit and befriended famous anarchists such as Peter Kropotkin, Elisée Reclus, and Errico Malatesta.
Nettlau was an avid collector of materials of social movements. Not just manuscripts by anarchist authors (although original texts by Bakunin became a part of his collection), but the actual pamphlets, bulletins, and papers of social movements themselves.
Among Nettlau’s works as an author are the first major biography of Michael Bakunin, biographies of anarchists Elisée Reclus and Errico Malatesta, and a seven volume work on the history of anarchism. A significantly shorter, one volume version is available in English as “A Short History of Anarchism”.
In 1935, Nettlau sold his archive (described by the IISH as “enormous”) to the newly found International Institute of Social History, where it remains to this day.
Nettlau died 1944 from stomach cancer in Amsterdam, having fled his native Austria follow the country’s “Anschluss” to Nazi Germany in 1938.
“Do I want to propose my own system? Not at all! I am an advocate of all systems, i.e. of all forms of government that find followers.”
- Max Nettlau in “PANARCHY. A Forgotten Idea of 1860” (1905)
A Short History of Anarchism by Max Nettlau
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Am i paranoid? I live with my family and they refuse to consider the h5n1 virus an actual threat bc they listen only to cable news. Am i paranoid trying to convince anyone to do something about it? Like even wearing a mask is too much. And of what use would a mask be, if im the only person wearing it?
afaik H5N1 isn’t a problem until there’s confirmed human-to-human transmission. Until then it’s just one of a really uncomfortable number of diseases that could become transmissable between humans or become airborne, but haven’t thus far.
You don’t need to worry a bout bird flu… yet. For now its a farmers problem. But till then wear a mask because covid is still out there killing folks.