New Proudhon Library

Proudhon before the Court of Assizes (1849)

Citizen jurors, you have heard the accusation; you will evaluate the defense. You will judge the good faith of the first; allow me to begin by expressing gratitude for the devotion of the second. The Advocate General made a mistake just now when he believed that if I was not speaking after him, it was because I had in reserve a few arguments that I wanted to present to you in all their freshness, without allowing him to answer them. I repeat, the Citizen Advocate-General was mistaken; I have nothing to say to you regarding the accusation and I have nothing to add to the defence; I have only to tell you about the origin of this lawsuit. […]

Proudhon Library

P.-J. Proudhon, Three Prefaces for “The Celebration of Sunday”

Proudhon’s first major work, The Celebration of Sunday, was subject to quite a number of revisions between the first edition in 1839 and what appears to be the fourth edition in 1850. The Preface and notes seem to have been particularly subject to change. As I have been revising my translation of the text from the 19th-century Œuvres Complètes, I wanted to determine the extent of the changes and turned to the notes published in the 20th-century Rivière edition, including the “Appendix” that I recently translated, which includes some material from a manuscript, perhaps now no longer accessible, that did not appear in any of the editions. That material revealed that at the time of the Rivière edition it was believed that Proudhon’s original 1839 edition was lost, one of the factors prompted the scholarly exchange around the manuscripts. Having access, at present to the 1838 volume, but not the manuscript, I can’t say any more about the sections addressed to the Academy, but I can say that the story of the revisions was a bit more complicated and different in its details than was suggested in that 20th-century exchange. As part of the work of clarifying the details, in preparation for a new Corvus Editions New Proudhon Library release, I’ve translated the first three versions of the Preface. […]

Working Translations

Charles-Auguste Bontemps, “The Libertarian Spirit” (1945)

A libertarian, from whatever discipline he claims to be, defines himself as essentially individualist and non-conformist. The libertarian spirit, according to the views that I propose to lay out, manifests itself in a constant desire for clarity, realism, objectivity. However, the initial structure of human societies was, as we know, strictly communitarian. One cannot, consequently, study the behaviors that are appropriate to a libertarian spirit, without having previously situated the individual with the group. […]

Anarchist Beginnings

The Three Eras (May 22, 1848)

What does anarchy mean in the streets, if not the absence of informers and armed police? But if, without armed police, without informers, without gendarmes, order reigns in the streets; if no one is robbed there, if no one is murdered there, if no one is insulted there, will the population not have proven that it can do without this power called gendarmes, police and municipal guards? Will it not have proven that it knows how to guard, protect and govern itself? […]