Fredy Perlman

{{short description|American author, publisher, and activist (1934–1985)}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Fredy Perlman

| image =

| imagesize =

| caption = Fredy Perlman

| birthname =

| birth_date = August 20, 1934

| birth_place = Brno, Czechoslovakia

| death_date = {{death date and age|1985|7|26|1934|8|20}}

| death_place = Detroit, Michigan, U.S.

| education = Columbia University (MA)
University of Belgrade (PhD)

| occupation = Author, publisher and activist

| known_for = Against His-Story, Against Leviathan (1983)

| nationality =

| spouse = {{Marriage|Lorraine Nybakken|1958}}

| footnotes =

}}

Fredy Perlman (1934–1985) was an American author, publisher, and activist. His best-known work, Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!, retells the historical rise of state domination (and domination generally) through a poetic investigation of the Hobbesian metaphor of the Leviathan.

Early life

Perlman was born August 20, 1934, in Brno, Czechoslovakia, to Henry and Martha Perlman. His family immigrated first to Cochabamba, Bolivia{{cite web | url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/perlman-fredy/index.htm | title=Fredy Perlman Reference Archive }} to escape the Holocaust{{cite web | url=https://archive.org/details/al_Fredy_Perlman_Anti-Semitism_and_the_Beirut_Pogrom_a4 | title=The Anarchist Library: Fredy Perlman Anti-Semitism and the Beirut Pogrom a4 }} and later to the United States. Perlman received a master's degree from Columbia University and a PhD from University of Belgrade. He married Lorraine Nybakken in January 1958.{{Cite news |title=Deaths: Fredy Perlman |work=Iowa City Press-Citizen |page=3 |date=1985-07-29 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/91411356/fredy-perlman-obituary-in-iowa-city/ |location=Iowa City, Iowa |df=mdy-all }}

Career

His best-known work,{{Cite book |editor1-last=Purkis |editor1-first=Jonathan |editor2-last=Bowen |editor2-first=James |title=Changing Anarchism: Anarchist Theory and Practice in a Global Age |date=2005 |isbn=978-0-7190-6694-8 |publisher=Manchester University Press |location=Manchester |page=237 }} Against His-Story, Against Leviathan (1983) rewrites the history of humanity as a struggle of free people resisting being turned into "zeks" (a Soviet term for forced labour that Perlman borrowed from The Gulag Archipelago) by Leviathans (a term used by Thomas Hobbes for the sovereign nation-state).{{Cite news |last1=Marcus |first1=Daniel |title=Information War |work=Artforum |volume=58 |issue=8 |date=April 2020 |url=https://www.artforum.com/print/202004/daniel-marcus-on-danielle-aubert-s-detroit-printing-co-op-82449 |language=en-US |issn=0004-3532 |df=mdy-all }} The book influenced the anarcho-primitivist author John Zerzan.{{Cite book |last=Purkis |first=Jonathan |chapter=Anarchy Unbound: A Tribute to John Moore |page=6 |editor1-last=Moore |editor1-first=John |editor2-last=Sunshine |editor2-first=Spencer |title=I Am Not a Man, I Am Dynamite! Friedrich Nietzsche and the Anarchist Tradition |date=2004 |language=en |isbn=978-1-57027-121-2 |publisher=Autonomedia |location=New York |oclc=249155584 |df=mdy-all }} Philosopher John P. Clark states that Against His-Story, Against Leviathan! describes Perlman's critique of what he saw as "the millennia-long history of the assault of the technological megamachine on humanity and the Earth." Clark also notes the book discusses "anarchistic spiritual movements" such as the Yellow Turban movement in ancient China and the Brethren of the Free Spirit in medieval Europe.John P. Clark,

"Anarchism" in Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature, edited by Bron Taylor; New York : Continuum, 2008, pp.49–56. {{ISBN|978-1-84706-273-4}}

Death

Perlman died on July 26, 1985, while undergoing heart surgery in Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital. He was survived by his wife and a brother.

Selected publications

{{Citation

|publisher = Living Theatre

|publication-place = New York

|author = Fredy Perlman

|title = Plunder

|publication-date = 1962

}}

"Essay on Commodity Fetishism". Telos 6 (Fall 1970). New York: Telos Press.
[https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/fredy-perlman-the-continuing-appeal-of-nationalism "The Continuing Appeal of Nationalism"]
[http://resonanceaudiodistro.wordpress.com/2015/06/25/the-continuing-appeal-of-nationalism/ Sound recording]
[http://www.spunk.org/texts/writers/perlman/sp001702/repro.html "The Reproduction of Daily Life"]
[http://noblesavagery.blogspot.com/2007/03/fredy-perlmans-against-his-story.html Against His-story! Against Leviathan!]
[http://libcom.org/library/worker-student-action-committees-france-1968-perlman-gregoire Worker-Student Action Committees, France May '68 with Roger Gregoire]
[http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/perlman-fredy/1977/revolutionary-leaders/index.htm Manual for Revolutionary Leaders]
[https://archive.org/details/VelliManualForRevolutionaryLeadersSecondEditionIncludingTheSourcesOfVellisThoughtsABBYY Manual for Revolutionary Leaders] Second Edition Including The Sources of Velli's Thoughts (Black & Red, Detroit, 1974)
[http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/perlman-fredy/1977/thesis-egocrats.htm "Ten Theses on the Proliferation of Egocrats"]
[http://www.radicalarchives.org/2009/10/09/fredy-perlman-on-paul-baran/ "Obituary for Paul Baran"]
[http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/fredy-perlman-the-machine-against-the-garden "The Machine Against the Garden: Two Essays on American Literature and Culture"]
[https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/lorraine-and-fredy-perlman-chicago-1968 "Chicago, 1968"]
[https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/fredy-perlman-anything-can-happen "Anything can happen"]
[https://resonanceaudiodistro.org/2016/09/11/illyria-street-commune-audioplay/ Illyria Street Commune] 1979 (AudioPlay)
[http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Fredy_Perlman__Illyria_Street_Commune.html Illyria Street Commune] 1979 (Playscript on The Anarchist Library)

References

External links

[http://www.blackandred.org/ Black and Red Books], the press founded by the Perlmans
[http://libcom.org/tags/fredy-perlman Fredy Perlman] texts at Libcom
[http://www.spunk.org/texts/writers/perlman/ Fredy Perlman] texts at Spunk Library
[http://theanarchistlibrary.org/authors/Fredy_Perlman.html Fredy Perlman] texts at The Anarchist Library

Category:1934 births

Category:1985 deaths

Category:20th-century American Jews

Category:20th-century American male writers

Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers

Category:20th-century American translators

Category:20th-century anarchists

Category:American anarchist writers

Category:American anti-capitalists

Category:American male non-fiction writers

Category:American people of Czech-Jewish descent

Category:Anarchist theorists