The Anarchist Cookbook
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| Author | William Powell |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Lyle Stuart |
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Publication date
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1971 |
| Media type | |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 120422 |
The Anarchist Cookbook, first published in 1971, is a book that contains instructions for the manufacture of explosives, rudimentary telecommunications phreaking devices, and other items. The book also includes instructions for home manufacturing of illicit drugs, including LSD. It was written by William Powell at the apex of the counterculture era in order to protest against United States involvement in the Vietnam War.
The copyright of the book never belonged to its author, but to its publisher Lyle Stuart. Stuart kept publishing the book until the company was bought in 1991 by Steven Schragis, who decided to drop it. Out of the 2,000 books published by the company, it was the only one that Schragis decided to stop publishing. Schragis said publishers have a responsibility to the public, and the book had no positive social purpose that could justify keeping it in print. In December 2013, it was reported that the copyright had been bought in 2002 by Delta Press, an Arkansas-based publisher that specialises in controversial books, and the book is their "most-asked-for volume".
The latest publication date is October 16, 2012 (), and the book is available in both paperback and hardback from Snowball Publishing. Reviewers say the copy has its basis in a 2002 revision and shows heavy editing and many items removed over the original 1971 edition.
Since writing the book, Powell converted to Anglicanism in 1976 and attempted to have the book removed from circulation. When Lyle Stuart published the book, its copyright was taken out in the publisher's name, not Powell's, and the current publisher had no desire to remove the book from print. Powell has written his desire to see it removed from circulation, as he stopped advocating what he had written.
On 19 December 2013, William Powell wrote an article in The Guardian to call for the book to "quickly and quietly go out of print". Powell died in July 2016.
At the time of its publication, one Federal Bureau of Investigation memo described The Anarchist Cookbook as "one of the crudest, low-brow, paranoiac writing efforts ever attempted".
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Wikipedia