"Anarchism is much more than chaos or bomb-throwing. As a well-considered system of thought and life, anarchism has had substantial influence in many aspects of society and writing around the world, including, far more than has been realized, British literature in the twentieth century." "Originating in a powerful condensation of the ideals of individual freedom and local cooperation, the anarchist approach was heavily influential in early twentieth-century resistance to oppression, notably in Spain. In our time anarchist ideas have resurfaced with renewed dissenting relevance in fields such as regionalism, decentralization and the ecological movement - as well as in street-level resistance to modern centralized government." "As this innovative collection shows, British literature has vigorously realized these manifestations of anarchism across time. Some treatments were nervously negative, as by Joseph Conrad and G. K. Chesterton, but many were sympathetic - English writers like Aldous Huxley, Alex Comfort, Ethel Mannin, Ralph Bates and Herbert Read, Scottish authors like Lewis Grassic Gibbon and Welsh ones like Rhys Davies and John Cowper Powys. Finally the collection explores the rich presence of the anarchist tradition in adventurous modern writers like James Kelman, Mark Ravenhill and Niall Griffiths, the Irish dramatist Enda Walsh and the whole London anarchist tradition from Emanuel Litvinoff to Iain Sinclair."--BOOK JACKET.