A quick update on the closing phases of writing my major work, In the Shadow of a Hurricane - on which I am now in my 18th year, having worked in 14 languages:
COMPLETED OVER THE PAST YEAR:
* USA: an intensive rewrite, especially focusing on the interwar and post-war period,based on a great new book by Chris Cornell on the topic, which uniquely helps articulate the lineages of a movement that is usually disarticulated by poor historiography (look up my book review Linking the Unchained);
* Imperial and Soviet Russia and its colonies: a total overhaul and rewrite from the Imperial to Soviet eras, with an in-depth and uniquely holistic analysis of the Ukrainian Revolution (including Odessa and western Ukraine), and the Russian Revolution in Siberia (Pereira, Heath and others), especially - based on my own translation of a ground-breaking new work by Chop & Liman on the city of Berdyansk under Makhnovist control - on a holistic study of the RPAU based largely on Makhno, Arshinov, Voline, Avrich, Darch, Savchenko, Azarov, Archibald, and Dubrovik into its exile formations in Poland, Latvia, Siberia and Romania, plus Anne Applebaum's great analysis of the Gulag Archipelago from its Okrana/Chekist roots to its dissolution;
* Georgia: a brand new section on the Georgian Revolution of 1905-1907 based largely on the study by Polonsky, fleshed out by Heath;
* Finland and the Baltics: integrating minority materials into the Imperial and Soviet eras;
* Poland: balancing the studies of Chwedoruk, Nagorsky, and Marek, with a focus especially on interwar anarcho-syndicalism - defeating the convention that Polish syndicalism was tainted by nationalism - and the anti-Nazi resistance and the Warsaw Ghetto and Uprising;
* Armenia and Azerbaijan: integrating new material on the 1890s-1900s Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaksutiun) and its attempt on the life of the sultan in Alloul et al, plus new material on the anarchist insurrectionists in the area;
* Croatia: a rewrite based on my own translation of a new Croatian book by Pejic on the movement up until WWII;
* Yugoslavia: interrogating Leeman's study of post-war Yugoslav "syndicalism";
* Bohemia / Czechoslovakia: a significant rewrite based on my own translation of a new Czech book by Tomak et al on the subject until 1923 with a focus on how the anarchists self-liquidated with the formation of the state of Czechoslovakia;
* Italy: integrating Pernicone's great study of the early movement from its origins in the 1860s to the early 1900s, focusing on how it evolved from insurrectionism to anarcho-syndicalism, and linking it to Sacchetti's sketch of the anti-Fascist resistance from the 1920s into the immediate post-WWII era;
* Greece etc: new material on the new insurrectonist movement in all its international aspects (links to Italy, Chile, Mexico, Rojava, etc), based on movement statement and news reports;
* Scandinavia: updating the material on Denmark based on Daniell Marcussen's new book until the early 1920s with a stress on the anarchist's relations with the Bolsheviks;
* Post-Revolutionary Spain and the exile movement: based on Peirats, and Ealham in particular, this traces the denouement of the revolutionary, reformist and counter-revolutionary factions in the MLE and CNT-Interior until the movement's post-Franco reconstruction - and schisms;
* Indonesia: integrating a brand-new Russian study by Damier et al plus other works by Stromquist, and Brown, on the East Indies anarchist movement in the colonial era with a focus on the national liberation struggle into the post-WWII period;
* South Asia: updating the story of the Ghadar Party in particular, reliant primarily on Ramnath's brilliant studies, stretching from 1913 into the post-independence era - with new materials on today's Indian Anarchist Federation and Bangladesh Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation;
* Korea and Manchuria: a very extensive overhaul and total rewrite based on my own translation of Emilio Crisi's excellent new Spanish-language study (the very first academic study!) of the almost unknown anarchist Manchurian Revolution of 1929-1932 plus Dongyoun Hwang's great work on the interplay between anarchism and national liberation in Korea, with an analysis reaching through the post-WWII period up to the present day;
* Japan: integrating analyses by Tzusuki, Crump, Reichschauer and others on the post-WWII movement in particular;
* Costa Rica: integrating Thomas' new work on the pre-WWII movement;
* Jamaica and the Caribbean: integrating Montgomery Stone's 1975 analysis of state-driven "self-management";
* Mexico: balancing the works of Hart and Caulfield to better understand the Mexican Revolution, plus Alberola etc on the post-WWII movement (still looking out for a new Spanish-language book by Aguilar on the topic however);
* Peru: completing Hirsch's study of how the movement grappled directly with the race question, integrating Aymara and Quechua militants into its organisations (and their own);
* Uruguay: a very extensive and detailed rewrite, especially on the 1958-1976 period of the FAU - one of the most significant anarchist mass organisations of the post-WWII era - based on my own translation of Ricardo Ramos Rugai's brilliant book-length study plus work by Colombo, Mechoso, and others;
* Algeria, Morocco & Tunisia: a rewrite of the post-WWII era and the MLNA especially in the national liberation struggle in Algeria until its destruction in 1957, based on Porter, Mohamed, and others;
* The 2016 implosion of the IWA: based on factional movement reports and analyses; and
* Conclusion: a very brief summing up of my major "discoveries" over 18 years of researching anarchist movement history.
UNDER WAY NOW:
* Bolivia: polishing up, especially on the FOL and its feminine vanguard, the FOF of Petronilla Infantes, from 1927-1964, based on Dibbets et al (have to translate this from hard-copy Spanish);
* Argentina: polishing up, with a focus on how the resistance societies like SROPC initiated anarcho-syndicalist unions on the docks and at sea, based on de Laforcard;
* Spanish Revolution: total overhaul and rewrite of this, the 20th Century's most complex and historically contested Revolution, based on the most penetrating and critical organisational studies of Chris Ealham, Augustin Guillamon, Abel Paz, Jose Peirats, and Stuart Christie, taking a hard line against the de facto counter-revolutionaries of the higher committees of the CNT-FAI; and
* Rojava Revolution: integrating the best new book-length study of the subject by Knapp et a with the positions of today's anarchist insurrectionists fighting ISIS in Rojava.
[ENDS]
