The Anarchist Cookbook

For the Film, see The Anarchist Cookbook (film).

The Anarchist Cookbook

Author	William Powell
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Instructional
Publisher	Lyle Stuart
Publication date	1971
ISBN	ISBN 0-9623032-0-8

The Anarchist Cookbook, first published in 1971 is a book that contains recipes and instructions for the manufacture of explosives, drugs, rudimentary telecommunications phreaking devices and other dangerous and illegal items, some with merit and some dangerous if even attempted. It was written by William Powell to protest the United States government's involvement in the Vietnam war.^[1] An "Anarchist Cookbook 2000" textfile is available on the web (often credited to "The Jolly Roger") which is not to be confused with the original.^[2]

Relationship to anarchism

Many scholars of anarchism dispute the association of the book with anarchist political philosophy. The anarchist collective CrimethInc., which published the book Recipes for Disaster: An Anarchist Cookbook, denounces the earlier book, saying it was "not composed or released by anarchists, not derived from anarchist practice, not intended to promote freedom and autonomy or challenge repressive power--and was barely a cookbook, as the recipes in it are notoriously unreliable."^[3]

Endorsement rescinded

Since writing the book, William Powell has converted to Christianity and in 2000 attempted to have the book removed from circulation.^[1] However, Powell noted that when the book was published, the copyright was taken out in the publisher's name, not his, and the current publisher has no desire to remove the book from print. Powell has since written to many websites devoted to the book, explaining his desire to see the book removed from circulation^[4] as he no longer advocates what he had written, saying: "The book, in many respects, was a misguided product of my adolescent anger at the prospect of being drafted and sent to Vietnam to fight in a war that I did not believe in."^[1]

Legality

In October 2007, a BBC news report alleged that a 17-year-old boy, charged with two counts of terrorism-related offenses, possessed a copy of the book.^[5] Later that month, PhillyNews reported a similar case in the Plymouth Whitemarsh school district in which a teenager planning a "Columbine-esque" school shooting was arrested and after a search warrant was executed was found to have a copy of the book along with numerous air powered weapons, black powder grenades, a 9mm rifle, a hand-painted Nazi flag, and a video related to the Columbine massacre ^[6].

Popular culture references

• The book was mentioned in Michael Moore's documentary Bowling for Columbine, when interviewing a student who was second highest on the bomb threat list; the student had made a tennis ball bomb and more recently a five-gallon drum of "homemade" napalm.
• The character "Cyrus 'The Virus' Grissom" in the movie Con Air, played by John Malkovich, is seen reading the book in prison (farcical in itself due to the fact the American prisons commonly censor and restrict the materials that prisoners are allowed to view and read).
• The book can be seen in Rage Against The Machine's Evil Empire CD foldout.
• In the online computer game World of Warcraft, the item "The Arcanist's Cookbook"'s title is a parody of the book.

See also

• The Anarchist Cookbook (film), a film that uses The Anarchist Cookbook as a major plot device.
• List of banned books
• Bananadine, a fictional psychoactive substance, was mentioned in the Anarchist Cookbook as a method of getting high from a banana peel.

References

External links

• The Anarchist Cookbook Comprehensive Faq and download of the Online Anarchist Cookbook.
• Righto.com Information about The Anarchist Cookbook.
• "The Anarchist Cookbook," a review by Esperanza Godot, Free Life: A Journal of Classical Liberal and Libertarian Thought (the journal of the Libertarian Alliance), No. 15 (November 1991); also available in PDF: [1].