Max Nettlau, born on the 30th of April in 1865, was an anarchist historian whose biographical subjects included Bakunin, Malatesta, and Élisée Reclus. His enormous collection of primary materials is held by the International Institute of Social History.

Max Nettlau was born in Neuwaldegg (Austria) to an affluent family. Nettlau's skepticism of state authority began at a young age; his memoirs state that, even as a child, he 'somehow considered the supporter of any government system as a seriously defective person'.

Formally, Nettlau studied linguistics, authoring his doctoral thesis on the Welsh language. While a student in London, he became a member of the Socialist League, the only organization he was ever to join according to the International Institute of Social History (IISG).

As an anarchist activist, Nettlau wrote articles for John Most's Freiheit and befriended famous anarchists such as Peter Kropotkin, Elisée Reclus, and Errico Malatesta.

Nettlau was an avid collector of materials of social movements. Not just manuscripts by anarchist authors (although original texts by Bakunin became a part of his collection), but the actual pamphlets, bulletins, and papers of social movements themselves.

Among Nettlau's works as an author are the first major biography of Michael Bakunin, biographies of anarchists Elisée Reclus and Errico Malatesta, and a seven volume work on the history of anarchism. A significantly shorter, one volume version is available in English as "A Short History of Anarchism".

In 1935, Nettlau sold his archive (described by the IISH as "enormous") to the newly found International Institute of Social History, where it remains to this day.

Nettlau died 1944 from stomach cancer in Amsterdam, having fled his native Austria follow the country's "Anschluss" to Nazi Germany in 1938.

"Do I want to propose my own system? Not at all! I am an advocate of all systems, i.e. of all forms of government that find followers."

  • Max Nettlau in "PANARCHY. A Forgotten Idea of 1860" (1905)

A Short History of Anarchism by Max Nettlau

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  • Bat [she/her]
    ·
    edit-2
    5 months ago
    food/weight shit

    AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH WHAT THE FUCK how did I GAIN weight between yesterday and today I only had 800 calories and YES I know about liquid calories I had no tea, coffee, soda, energy drinks, alcohol, or any other fluid other than water. This is so goddamn FRUSTRATING how how HOW

    I know home scales are bullshit and are inaccurate and there's natural variation in weight and all that shit and it's probably just those things but still it is EXTRAORDINARY frustrating

    First day in the past week that it has actually gone up instead of down

    • Moss [they/them]
      ·
      5 months ago

      Those kinds of fluctuations are normal, and its very unlikely that for the rest of the week you'll weigh as much as you did today.

      • Bat [she/her]
        ·
        5 months ago

        that's true but it still is ruining my morning nontheless

        • Tunnelvision [they/them]
          ·
          5 months ago

          Also only eating like 800 calories is not good. I’m not going to tell you what to do, but you can definitely lose weight and still eat much more than that.

    • Commiejones [comrade/them, he/him]
      ·
      5 months ago

      The numbers arent real. They cant hurt you.

      Don't obsess about the numbers. Nobody cares what number you are. They care about how healthy you look and happy you feel. If your number goes down but you don't look happy and healthy than you aren't doing any good. If you are focused on what number showed up on the scale you won't be happy. There is always a smaller number. If you stop eating because you hit some imaginary number and not when your body has had enough sustenance how are you gonna stay healthy?

      • Bat [she/her]
        ·
        5 months ago

        the number is just a representation of the weight and that is very real and can hurt me

        I've got a shitload of fat deposited from before hrt fat redistribution so it makes me feel like absolute shit