Anarchy (magazine)

For the contemporary American publication, see Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed.

Anarchy

Cover of Anarchy 14 on Disobedience
Editor	Colin Ward
Categories	Political philosophy
Frequency	Monthly
Publisher	Freedom Press
First issue	March 1961
Final issue	1970
Based in	London
Language	English
ISSN	0003-2751
OCLC	222887480

Anarchy was an anarchist monthly magazine which was produced from March 1961 until December 1970. It was founded and edited by anarchist Colin Ward, and was published by Freedom Press in London.

David Goodway observed in his book Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow that Ward urged the case to his fellow editors for a 'more reflective' Freedom, to which they eventually responded 'by giving him his head with the monthly Anarchy from March 1961'. The magazine included articles on anarchism and reflections on current events from an anarchist perspective, e.g. workers' control, criminology and squatting. It published contributions from established authors such as Marie Louise Berneri, Murray Bookchin, Stanley Cohen, Paul Goodman, George Woodcock and Nicholas Walter. From Issue Six onwards, graphic designer and illustrator Rufus Segar became the resident art director of the magazine. Ward gave him significant freedom in his design of each issue, albeit while working to a tight deadline.

Goodway commended Anarchy's 'simple excellence', which he supported by citing the British Marxist historian and author Raphael Samuel:

'The editing, according to an admiring, though not uncritical contributor [Nicholas Walter], was minimal: nothing was rewritten, nothing even subbed. "Colin almost didn't do anything. He didn't muck it about, didn't really bother to read the proofs. Just shoved them all in. Just let it happen."'

A second series of Anarchy was published into the 1980s with an editorship that included, at various times, Charlotte Baggins, Chris Broad and Phil Ruff. Freedom Press later published A Decade of Anarchy 1961–1970: Selections from the Monthly Journal Anarchy, which collected writing from the first series.

The 2012 book, Autonomy: The Cover Designs of Anarchy 1961–1970, features all the covers designed by Segar.

References

• Goodway, David (2012) [originally 2006]. Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow: Left-Libertarian Thought and British Writers from William Morris to Colin Ward. Oakland, California: PM Press. ISBN 978-1-60486-669-8.
• Graham, Robert (2009). Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas. Montreal: Black Rose Books. ISBN 978-1-55164-310-6.
• Kossoff, Gideon (Winter 2016). "Reviewed Work: Autonomy: The Cover Designs of Anarchy 1961-1970 by Daniel Poyner". Design Issues. 32 (1): 94–96. doi:10.1162/DESI_r_00370. JSTOR 43830460.
• Poyner, Daniel (2012). Autonomy: The Cover Designs of Anarchy 1961–1970. London: Hyphen Press. ISBN 9780907259466.
• Samuel, Raphael (1987). "Utopian sociology". New Society (2 October): 276.
• Ward, Colin (1987). A Decade of Anarchy 1961-1970: Selections from the Monthly Journal Anarchy. Freedom Press. ISBN 9780900384370.
• Warpole, Ken (2010). "Colin Ward obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 September 2025.

Further reading

• Ferguson, Kathy E. (2023). Letterpress Revolution: The Politics of Anarchist Print Culture. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press Books. ISBN 1478016590.
• Scott-Brown, Sophie (2023). "Inventing Ordinary Anarchy in Cold War Britain" (PDF). Modern Intellectual History. 20 (4): 1251-1272. doi:10.1017/S1479244323000057. Retrieved 9 June 2026.

External links

• Anarchy issue covers from Internet Archive
• Anarchy issues
• Anarchy archive from The Sparrows' Nest.
• Full-text articles from Anarchy: a journal of anarchist ideas
• Anarchy issues #23 and #40 at Libcom.org
• The Raven: Anarchist Quarterly (1987 to 2003)
• "Work" reading of an excerpt from Anarchy 101, published in issue 59