Year of Award
2011
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Type
Master of Arts (MA)
Degree Name
History
Department or School/College
Department of History
Committee Chair
Michael S. Mayer
Keywords
Bookchin, Josef Weber, post-scarcity anarchism, social ecology
Abstract
Hyams, Aaron, M.A., Spring 2011 History Fifty Years on the Fringe: Murray Bookchin and the American Revolutionary Tradition 1921-1971 Chairperson: Dr. Michael Mayer Murray Bookchin was an American revolutionary and political theorist born in New York City in 1921. His career as both an activist and a theorist through the thirties, forties, fifties and sixties, made him an active participant and influential voice for both the American Old Left, and the New Left. Writing for Contemporary Issues, a left wing journal edited by Josef Weber, Bookchin became an important part of the schismatic Left, a loose conglomeration of Marxist and Materialists who were both anti-Liberal and anti-Soviet. Bookchin worked with Weber until the latter’s death in 1959. The two men formed a powerful intellectual and personal relationship that influenced Bookchin’s career well into the 1960s. After Weber’s death, Bookchin became a controversial and eclectic anarchist theorist. He developed Social Ecology, a comprehensive critique of advanced industrial capitalism that fused classical Anarchism with Neo-Marxist theory and British ecological theory. By the 1970s, Social Ecology had evolved into a standalone school of thought that became a guiding influence for the American Environmental Movement and bioregionalism.
Recommended Citation
Hyams, Aaron David, "Fifty Years on the Fringe: Murray Bookchin and the American Revolutionary Tradition, 1921-1971" (2011). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 446.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/446
© Copyright 2011 Aaron David Hyams