Anyone know any good books about revolution?

[spoorprint]

On Revolution, by Hannah Arendt. Arendt raised the question why do the early, direct democratic phases of revolution never last.

Obsolete Communsm, by Daniel Cohn-Bendit. About the French worker student revolt of 1968, with chapters on how Leninism destroyed the Russian revolution.

 

[plagueship]

omg really, no one 2nding TCI?? let me plug it a little more descriptively:
i would put this on a level with society of the spectacle and kapital (two books also worth reading, btw, well, at least SoS). the coming insurrection is sort of a watering down of the ideas of the tiqqun collective who authored one of the most profound critiques of modern society. it's really not very long and is very well written. the first half of the book is a systematic analysis of all the levels of a civilization that now justifies its domination mainly through the indefinite management of its own collapse. the second half tries to locate potential points of rupture and modes of developing resistance and the potential for revolutionary force. society of spectacle is worth reading too, an older book, and the major text of the situationist movement, which analyzes how representation comes to dominate all social relations in late capitalism.

 

[wizehop]

There was this book at a university library I used to hang out in back in the day. It was a thick hardcover book called "blue prints to revolution", I cant find anything about it online, and I've only ever heard/seen it at that library. It was by far the most amazing and detailed manual I have seen to date.
The strange thing was the forward was written by Ronald Reagan and it was actually created for the elite in order to fight off revolution. Non the less it had chapters on everything from fighting gorilla warfare, to setting up different styles of cells, and secret orders, propaganda, recruiting, media, mass thinking and how to use it, you name it; anything you needed to know to start and operate a movement on the biggest of levels, along with all the history on how it was used ext.

I had planned on steeling it along with a handful of other priceless books but I took a backpacking trip through Latin America that winter and when I came back half a year later my brain switched onto different things.
Now that I've seen this thread I'm going to see if I can go nab it.

 

[spoorprint]

What gets me is that many of the books posted in this thread are about seizing state power rather than reorganizing society-about political rather than social revolution. I thought most of the people here were anarchists.

 

[zea mays]

This is kind of unconventional, but Seeing by Jose Saramago...... It starts out with this city having en election, and everyone in the city unanimously just casts blank votes. The book deals with the government collapsing into more and more desperate measures and the citizens spontaneously getting totally mutualistic.

 

[mycophage]

One that I am surprised is not mentioned on this thread is "Blood in My Eye" by George Jackson.
George Jackson was an incarcerated black panther and read extensively on other revolutionary material. It's better written than anything by Che, or anything by any Leninist IMO. However, Jackson references most other revolutionary writing. It is available as a zine or on many websites as a pdf for free by simply googling. Sometimes the zine is called (BIME)

 

[deleted user]

I second derrick jensens work, i never read DGR but i never found his work to be transphobic honestly

 

[Matt Derrick]

I'm not sure what DGR is, but I've heard Derrick Jensen is pretty transphobic.