Résumé
Résumé de L’Anarchisme
Free for 3 months
Get the full summary of L’Anarchisme, free
- 200,000+ classics as eBooks, audiobooks and 15-minute summaries, and print and large print at cost
- Up to 5 readers in your home on one plan
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
This book suits readers who like to see an argument built step by step, anyone curious about the thinkers behind anarchism, and those who enjoy clear definitions and comparisons.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
Everyone has an opinion about anarchism, and almost no two people mean the same thing by it. Some think it means chaos. Others think it means a world without rulers, or without money, or without any rules at all.
What if a lawyer set out to sort the claims by reading the sources, one thinker at a time? That is the work of Paul Eltzbacher, a judicial assessor in Halle, writing around the turn of the twentieth century. He chose seven thinkers: Godwin, Proudhon, Stirner, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Tucker and Tolstoy. He put the same questions to each and let them answer in their own words. Then he laid the answers side by side, and the result surprises almost everyone.
Dans ce résumé
- 1Define your terms and choose your witnessesFree
- 2Law, the State and property get exact meanings
- 3Godwin grounds everything in the general welfare
- 4Proudhon replaces laws with contracts
- 5Stirner makes the individual his own measure
- 6Bakunin reads history as a march toward freedom
- 7Kropotkin builds a world of free associations
- 8Tucker and Tolstoy reach freedom by opposite roads
- 9What the seven share and where the debate goes
Point clé 1 sur 9
Define your terms and choose your witnesses
Eltzbacher opens with a problem. Ask ten people what anarchism teaches and you get ten answers. Some say it rejects law, others say society, others only the State.
To study anarchist teachings, you must first know which teachings count. That seems to need the very definition you are looking for. He solves it by asking whom the study is for: readers whose loose notions must be replaced with exact concepts. Then he takes the group of teachings that the greatest number of scholars recognize. When a scholar names a teaching as anarchist, that counts for more than any general definition. The result is seven names that nearly every account offers.
The path then has three steps. Define law, the State and property. Question each thinker on them, from his basis to his road to change. Then state the final concepts. Good thinking starts by deciding exactly what you are talking about.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
Take this summary with you
Send to Kindle downloads the file and opens Amazon's page: drop the file there.
Go deeper: the whole of L’Anarchisme
About 6 h to read.Commencez 90 jours gratuitsPaperback, hardcover and large print, printed for you at cost, are on their way.Email me when it is printed
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 96,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 6 h 25 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 5 other languages
Questions about L’Anarchisme
What is Anarchism by Paul Eltzbacher about?
It is a comparative study of seven thinkers, Godwin, Proudhon, Stirner, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Tucker and Tolstoy. Eltzbacher asks each the same questions about law, the State and property, then defines anarchism from what they share.
Who are the seven thinkers in Eltzbacher's Anarchism?
They are William Godwin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Max Stirner, Mikhail Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, Benjamin Tucker and Leo Tolstoy. Eltzbacher chose them because most scholars of his day counted their teachings as anarchist.
How does Eltzbacher define anarchism?
Within legal philosophy, he defines anarchism as a rejection of the State. That is the one thing all seven teachings share, though they differ on law, property, basis and the means of change.
Does Eltzbacher say anarchism means violence or chaos?
No. He shows that the seven disagree on violence. Godwin and Proudhon seek change within the law, Tucker and Tolstoy favour refusal without force, and only some accept force. He also argues that anarchism need not reject society.
Is Anarchism by Eltzbacher approachable for a general reader?
Yes, in its clear structure. Each thinker is treated in the same order, with short chapters, his own words and a brief biography. The closing chapters gather the comparison into tables that make the whole picture easy to see.
Cite this edition
Eltzbacher, Paul. Anarchism. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/anarchism.
Eltzbacher, P. (2026). Anarchism. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/anarchism (Original work published 1900)
Eltzbacher, Paul. Anarchism. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/anarchism.
@book{eltzbacher2026anarchism,
author = {Eltzbacher, Paul},
title = {Anarchism},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/anarchism},
note = {First published 1900}
}
Free for 3 months
Get the full summary of L’Anarchisme, free
- 200,000+ classics as eBooks, audiobooks and 15-minute summaries, and print and large print at cost
- Up to 5 readers in your home on one plan
