Editor’s Introduction

For this issue, we have chosen articles that concentrate primarily on the history of radicalism from the eighteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries. Of course, the question remains how one defines “radicalism.” In general, we have kept to the idea with which we began the journal: radicalism applies to those who seek sudden social transformation, often, though not always, through violent means. But of course there are also those who question the very basis of a society, as well as those who can be described as reactionary. All of these are visible in this issue’s rich lode of articles.

Our first article, by Rowland Weston, takes us back to the seminal period of the French Revolution and its aftermath, and asks us to consider more carefully what we mean by terms like the “Enlightenment,” or “the radical Enlightenment.” What are the philosophical presuppositions that underlie “modernity” or “anti-modernism”? Weston does not rest with the figure of William Godwin or his circle, but extends his inquiry to contemporary philosophical assumptions as well to consider what makes Godwin a radical thinker in ways that challenge conventional notions of what constitutes the “Enlightenment,” or “modernity”—that is, what is included in and what is excluded by those terms.

Our second article, by Michael J. Turner, looks back to British history, and in particular to the seminal movement of the Chartists. Turner gives us the history of James Bronterre O’Brien, an important figure in this movement for dramatic political reform, but he also offers an analysis of what O’Brien can teach us about how a radical leader develops and maintains his political reputation, and what this can teach us about the reception of ideas and the development of political influence.

The third article, by David Struthers, takes us across the Atlantic and all the way to Los Angeles in the early twentieth century. Struthers offers a detailed history of the radical labor movement in California during a turbulent period of immigration and, sometimes, conflict. Italian, Hispanic, Asian, African American, Anglo, and other ethnicities all converged in Los Angeles during this time. Struthers concentrates on issues of race in a period and place where multiple population groups intersected, the points of intersection often being the labor movements. But Struthers also includes anarchists and others whose radicalism is self-evident.

Our fourth article is by Stephen J. Whitfield, and concentrates on a single figure, Frank Tannenbaum, whose life chronicle takes us from labor movements (he was a Wobbly) through social and prison reform, through the history of race relations in North America, to the development of the academic study of Latin America. Tannenbaum eventually became an influential professor at Columbia University, but, Whitfield maintains, his anarcho-syndicalist inclinations continued throughout his life. Through this examination of Tannenbaum’s life, we can see the interconnections between the Jewish community and the larger history of radicalism in the twentieth century.

And our fifth article, Benjamin T. Smith’s examination of the political significances of narcotrafficking in Mexico during the middle of the twentieth century, presents a groundbreaking analysis of how narcotrafficking and state violence intersect to produce some unexpected political and social consequences. Smith shows that, contrary to what one might think, especially from the 1970s onwards, governmental agencies and drug traffickers aligned not only for reasons of financial self-interest, but also in a joint attempt to suppress radical groups in the Sinaloa region of Mexico. While this is a very detailed historical study, it also offers broader conclusions about the political and social results of “narcopopulism.”

This issue also includes five book reviews, chosen to link with some of the themes discussed in our articles. We did not include a conversation in this issue, but we have several conversations with some interesting and unexpected contemporary figures that we are preparing for coming issues—you may be surprised at some of them. One purpose for including conversations with primary figures from across the political spectrum is to challenge conventional notions about some of these figures and what they represent, and to do this by allowing them to speak for themselves.

As you...