Reddit reviews Against the State: An Introduction to Anarchist Political Theory

Here's a list I'm working on:

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Online introductions:

• The Wikipedia entry for libertarian socialism actually gives a pretty good overview.
  
  
• An Anarchist FAQ also has good material -- it is especially good at differentiating traditional anarchism from US-style libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism. You will find many references to other works in the FAQ.
  
  
• /r/anarchy101 is a good place to ask questions. Check the sidebar for a list of recommended reading material.
  
  
• If you're ever looking for specific works online, always check The Anarchist Library. They've archived many (mostly shorter) works, and they're available in several formats (html, pdf, epub).
  
  Books:
  
  
• The Conquest of Bread by Peter Kropotkin. It is old, a classic, but it provides examples rather than formal/philosophic arguments so it is still quite readable and relevant today. It will give you a good idea of where modern anarchist communists are coming from.
  
  
• A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. This book is not explicitly anarchist, but it presents an accessible and scholarly picture of the way anarchists tend to view and react to the world. As the title suggests, it will be most interesting to anyone interested in the history of the USA specifically.
  
  
• A book like Paul Eltzbacher's The Great Anarchists: Ideas and Teachings of Seven Major Thinkers which provides an overview of the various founding philosophers is a good idea. This is another old one [1908], but one advantage of Eltzbacher is that unlike most authors of anarchist texts, he was not an anarchist himself and offers a very unbiased introduction.
  
  
• I think Peter Gelderloos writes clear introductory material. I've not read his latest (The Failure of Nonviolence), but you can read Anarchy Works online.
  
  
• It's a bit outside the main thrust of the anarchist tradition (which is often focused on class struggle), but one of my favorite books is Crispin Sartwell's Against the State: An Introduction to Anarchist Political Theory which provides counter arguments to several justifications for states, especially the various contract theories.
  
  Other reading guides:
  
  
• Phoenix Class War Council's Recommended Reading
  
  
• Libcom.org's reading guide

whoa whoa, let's make sure we're talking about the same thing. WTF are you talking about "interpretation of those books"? What books are you talking about?

Are you talking about The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau? That book was written to debunk the claimed "divine right" to power that medieval monarchs claimed to have. I didn't say reading that book disabused me of social contract theory because it didn't.

Try reading Against the State by Crispin Sartwell. Here's the author giving an introduction to the book and himself. I'm not an anarchist, but their philosophical arguments are sound.