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Reviewed by:
  • Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-Colonial Imagination
  • Evan Matthew Daniel
Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-Colonial Imagination Benedict Anderson London and New York: Verso Press, 2006. 224 pp., ISBN 1844670376, $25.00.

Devious imperialists, subversive plotters, a bejeweled pomegranate packed with nitroglycerine: welcome to the literary world of José Rizal as revealed by Benedict Anderson. An exceptionally written exploration of the life and times of Rizal, Anderson's latest book introduces readers to the Filipino nationalist whose position in Philippine history is roughly analogous to Cuba's beloved José Martí. In the late nineteenth century Rizal emerged as the key spokesperson for Philippine autonomy and independence [End Page 137] on the world stage. Anderson reminds readers of the many points of comparison between the two men and movements: the Katipunan uprising in the Philippines took place a year after the Cuban struggle for independence under Martí; both were literary figures, Martí a poet, Rizal an accomplished novelist; both spent years abroad whether voluntary or in exile; both struggled against Spanish imperialism; and both died as martyrs for their respective causes.

Anderson, alluding to Herman Melville, terms the general approach of the text as one of "political astronomy." In his endeavor to "map the gravitational force of anarchism between militant nationalisms on opposite sides of the planet" readers follow the author in his discussion of the genesis of anarchism in Western Europe during the late nineteenth century and the spread of revolutionary movements in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Anderson positions nationalism in the nineteenth-century Spanish Empire within a radical, international, anticapitalist milieu that includes both local anticolonial aspirations in the periphery and internationalist strivings in Europe's metropoles. The nineteenth-century anarchist movement—in combination with other movements in the arts and literature—provide the venues for this cross-pollination of ideas and individuals.

As argued in Anderson's previous work, The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia and the World, long-distance nationalism and patriotism in exile are among the leading generators of national identity. Many social scientists researching ethnic transnationalism and identity claim that contemporary neoliberal economic integration of the global capitalist system and recent communications and transportation innovations have qualitatively transformed the experiences of individuals living in the capitalist world. Works like Anderson's position globalization and transnationalism as historically evolving phenomena, not the byproduct of contemporary factors or a response to a modern communications revolution. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, transoceanic telegraph cables were laid, steamships were transporting millions of people around the globe, printed materials were more readily available than ever, and an emerging transportation network of both steamships and railroads moved magazines, books, and photographs around the world "from state to state, empire to empire, and continent to continent . . . moving millions of people and commodities within national and colonial borders, linking remote interiors to each other and to ports and capitals."

Utilizing a technique of montage, Anderson constructs a narrative that contains three interlinking worlds. The first is the emergence of a Bismarck-dominated interstate system in the late nineteenth century. As Prussian forces vanquished their Austro-Hungarian adversaries in 1866 followed by a victory [End Page 138] over France in 1870, Prussia emerged as the hegemonic power of continental Europe. Furthermore, Bismarck's victories facilitated the creation of the German Empire and "put an end to monarchism in France, destroyed the temporal power of the Papacy, and launched his country as a late-comer imperialist in Africa, Asia and Oceania." The second is the state of the radical Left at this historical juncture. In 1871, the Paris Commune provided a glimpse of the impossible, that the popular classes could overthrow the "capital of world civilization." In Anderson's analysis, the subsequent repression of the communards coupled with the death of Karl Marx "opened the way for the rise of international anarchism, which up to end of the century was the main vehicle for global opposition to industrial capitalism, autocracy, latifundusm and imperialism." The third world inhabited by Rizal was that of the Spanish Empire whose remaining territories included the Philippines and Cuba. Appreciating the multileveled diversity of this structural and cultural context allows...

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