Black & Red Books
Detroit
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Lives of the Saints
A pointedly jaundiced look at the meaning of sainthood in the modern world, Franklin’s book is, among other things, the outcome of many years spent wondering how we humans went so wildly astray in our treatment of each other and of our shared planetary home. In that vein, Franklin’s multiple narrators embody, confront or critique a panoply of contemporary saints and their symptoms, from Christopher Columbus to Adolph Hitler, from family psychodynamics to globe-encircling hierarchies of power and domination. And all with a smile on their lips and a song in their hearts.
Seizure of State Power
Fredy Perlman & Michael Velli
153 pages
$4.50
The logic and principles of Machiavelli, Marx, Lenin, Mao, and of Carl Davidson and SDS, shape this exposure of the classical route for achieving State power in the Western world. Seizure first appeared as Part 3 of Michael Velli’s Manuel for Revolutionary Leaders (1972).
The Strait:
Obenabi’s Songs
Fredy Perlman
397 pages
$6.00
Obenabi, the narrator, sings the story of his people confronting the European Invader. The tales are personal, emerging from the remembered experiences of his grandmothers. These dramas of conflict, commerce, domestication, heroism, exchange and love are set in the Great Lakes region of North America. Most take place in splendid natural surroundings within walking distance of the Strait (now Detroit).
Against His-Story, Against Leviathan
Fredy Perlman
302 pages
$6.00
How Civilization encroached on free peoples. On every continent scribes, traders and kings promoted division of labor, professional armies, social discipline, nationalist, ethnic and class fervor.
Beyond Bookchin: Preface for a Future Social Ecology
David Watson
247 pages
$5.00
The most comprehensive discussion to date of Murray Bookchin’s social ecology. But David Watson goes far beyond social ecology to explore new paths of thinking about radical politics. His visionary ecology challenges the mystique of progress and proposes a more holistic notion of reason both primal and modern, skeptical and mythopoetic.
Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship
Noam Chomsky
141 pages
$4.00
Written while the Vietnam War was raging, Chomsky condemns liberal ideology for supporting U.S. imperial adventures in Southeast Asia during the 1960s. Similar ideological blinders distort the work of scholars who analyze earlier conflicts. Chomsky’s critique of historians of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War leads to a stirring account of that libertarian struggle in the late 1930s.
Momentos
Federico Arcos
64 pages
$2.00
The author of these poems was a teenage activist in Barcelona during the 1936 revolution. His commitment to anarchist principles and to his Ideal are communicated in these poems.
Some Winded,
Wild Beast
Christina V. Pacosz
99 pages
$3.00
A daughter of Polish parents, the poet examines her heritage of growing up in Detroit. She marvels at the innocence of non-human living beings and ruminates on too-familiar human indifference.
Appendix to Anarchists in the Spanish Revolution
Jose Peirats
29 pages
$1.25
What happened to the half million refugees who left Spain when Franco came to power in 1939? Jose Peirats traces their story in this appendix to his carefully documented Anarchists in the Spanish Revolution. In the few months between April and September 1, 1939, six boats carrying Spanish refugees departed for South America and the Caribbean islands. But anarchists were left behind in French concentration camps, as permission to board was granted by the Communist Negrin. Organizing efforts of some of these Spanish militants is told in this pamphlet.
Summer On Fire
A Detroit Novel
A mix of history and inventive remembrances, Summer on Fire recreates six weeks in the intense summer of 1967. Riots, rock and roll, shootings, marches, and bomb plots shake Detroit, reminding us that today’s turmoil is a mirror of that era.
Having Little, Being Much - A Chronicle of Fredy Perlman's Fifty Years
Lorraine Perlman
155 pages
$4.00
A memoir with photos written by Fredy’s companion of 27 years. Fredy’s life began in Czechoslovakia in 1934 and ended in Detroit in 1985. In those fifty years he lived on three continents and incorporated in his written works his experiences in graphic arts, politics, communal enterprises, historical research, music, printing, journalism, education and publishing.
The Continuing Appeal of Nationalism
Fredy Perlman
58 pages
$2.00
Examines how people resisting oppression and wishing for autonomy are misled, twisted, and turned into leaders and followers who oppress on the basis of abstract notions. The text ends with a question: “What concentration camp manager, national executioner or torturer is not a descendant of oppressed people?”
Anti-Semitism and the Beirut Pogrom
Fredy Perlman
22 pages
$1.00
Fredy recounts how encounters with racism in Central Europe, Bolivia and the U.S. heightened his perception and prepared him to denounce American “cheerleaders for Israel.” He is astounded that potential victims of Nazi extermination can accept, even support, Israeli massacres of Palestinian refugees.
Plunder
Fredy Perlman
84 pages
$2.00
Fredy Perlman’s first published work (1962). A tragic drama of global imperialism and racism involving characters from Asia, Africa and North America.
Worker-Student Action Committees France, May 68
Two activists recount their fascinating experiences in Paris when it seemed possible that a non-bureaucratic revolution was at hand. As participants, they analyze actions and principles. They criticize passivity, leaders and fear of change.
The Story of Tatiana
In the shadow of the Jungfrau’s peak that towers above Interlaken, Switzerland, a radical militant from upper class Tsarist Russia has come to assassinate the interior minister. A true history.
Love & Politics
Judith Malina
84 pages
$3.00
Judith Malina and her longtime companion-comrade Julian Beck founded the Living Theatre in New York City in 1947. In these poems Judith shares her anguish at injustices inflicted by bureaucratic authority; the rewards she found in love and collaboration with Julian; her difficulties in making some life-defining choices.
Poland 1980-82: Class Struggle and the Crisis of Capital
Henri Simon
144 pages
$3.00
Henri Simon captures the drama, the hopes and disappointments of workers’ rebellions in Polish industrial cities in the early 1980s. This is a document of politicians practicing their skill at manipulation.
On the Poverty of Student Life
Situationists International
31 pages
$1.00
The Situationist International and the students at the University of Strasbourg prepared and published (using student union funds) this scathing analysis of student duplicity. While claiming to be revolutionaries, students prepare themselves for a professional career – “just in case.” The pamphlet provides a Situationist analysis of a familiar institution.
Alan Franklin
102 pages
$8.00
Peter Werbe
262 pages
$14.00
Fredy Perlman & Roger Gregoire
144 pages
$10.00