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I've earlier tried a stab a this book, but only got 45 pages in. There's a lot to fit in a 391pp paperback on anarcho-syndicalist perspectives on modern capitalism, class composition, organizing methods, the pitfalls of Leninism and such. I'm about 55 pages in and making a go at it. So far, I've really appreciated Wetzel's compact style: not a lot of flourish, a few examples to illustrate a point. From an interview on Coffee With Comrades, I got that Wetzel's been working on this book off and on for decades, so it shows a lot of thought, revision and concision in the layout and arguments. And I find the introduction of jargon to be minimal and clear when it does show up, a useful thing when introducing someone to a topic and leading them down a string of arguments to the conclusion you hope them to agree with. It also makes disagreement and critique way easier. For being a bit dry, I'm excited to keep moving through this title and maybe get to pick the author's brain in an interview.

This book was quite entertaining and really brought together the racial animus of Anglo settlers on the Mexican border, the history of the Mexican political development, US impositions, struggles against primitive accumulation of Indigenous lands and bodies, rebellion against the Diaz regime and particularly the Flores Magón brothers' organizing with the PLM to tell a good story. Dr. Lytle Hernandez does not appear to have a sympathetic view of anarchists from the description of Ricardo (I don't say that because of criticisms of his relationships or petty, written attacks by him, anarchists shouldn't have idols, but because his anarchist views didn't appear weighed in the book). Also, the book felt a little like it was quickly tied together like the publishing schedule forced her pen a bit. But the insights into US manipulation of the political landscape in Mexico, the legal wrangling in the USA against RFM & the Junta, and the scandalous undermining of the integrity of the postal system to weaken the PLM's organizing was laid out quite well by the author. I paired this with a reread of the biography at the start of Mitchell C Verter's "Dreams of Freedom: A Ricardo Flores Magón Reader", as Magón died in a US prison 100 years ago this month.

This book was a FUCKING trip! Dennis King did great research and exhaustively covered LaRouche's upbringing, his shifts from conservative Quaker to Trotskyist with the SWP, to the: creation of an anti-Semitic cult building dual power intelligence services, attempts to defend aging nazi war criminals, promoted science & scifi around directed-energy weapons, links to mafia-adjacent Teamster bosses, scammed conservative elders out of millions of dollars, ran politicians as Democrats and himself as president 8 times, had connections to the Reagan admin, and even bullied Roy Cohn into a corner. And this was just the up until 1988 when the book was published and LaRouche went to prison! He got out after like 5 years and his international structures continued to function to various degrees, with chapters in Germany, Sweden, Mexico and other places. What a ride! LaRouche died in 2019, but his widow (Helga) and others continue organizations like The Schiller Institute and adherents have continued to harass "green" progressive democrats and exist in similar ecosystems as PatSoc, RedBrown, National Bolshevist and third positionist weirdos. I'm hoping, some day, to dig into the 1,000 + page tome by Kevin Coogan (former LaRouchite himself, written under a psuedonym, Hylozoic Hedgehog), "Smiling Man From a Dying Planet", but sadly it was never printed so there's only online editions.