How will this book be different to other books on anarcho-punk that have been published?
The fact that there are now a growing number of books on different aspects of anarcho-punk is an extremely positive and welcome development. These titles are beginning to challenge the exclusion of anarcho-punk from the accepted and ‘acceptable’ histories of punk rock. A review by the author of The Hippies Now Wear Black of two of those books, The Story of Crass The Day the Country Died, can be found here. Alongside the fact that The Hippies Now Wear Black does not focus exclusively on the work of Crass, the single most immediate difference between this book and others so far published is that this is primarily a cultural-political history of the movement and the sub-cultures which comprised it, rather than a musical history. The Hippies Now Wear Black is being published by AK Press, an anarchist publishing house, rather than a publisher of musical biographies or band histories – and it’s the ideas and practice of anarcho-punk that will form the overarching themes of the book.
