Death to Bourgeois Society: The Propagandists of the Deed

Never before presented in English, here are the actual words and explanations of the acts of the Propagandists of the Deed, which had enormous impact on French political and cultural life

Perhaps no period has so marked, so deformed, or so defined the anarchist movement as the three years in France from 1892 to 1894, the years known as the Age of Attentats, the years dominated by the Propagandists of the Deed. Death to Bourgeois Society tells the story of four young anarchists who were guillotined in France in the 1890s.

The volume focuses on the main avatars of this movement and contains key first-person narratives of the events, from Ravachol’s forbidden speech and his account of his life, to Emile Henry’s questioning at his trial and his programmatic letter to the director of the prison in which he was held, to Auguste Vaillant’s confrontation with the investigators immediately after tossing his bomb, and Santo Caserio’s description of the assassination and his defense at his trial. In a time of cynicism and political decay for many, they represented a purity lacking in society, and their actions when they were captured, their forthrightness, their defiance up to the guillotine only added to their luster.