Books by Maia Ramnath

Decolonizing Anarchism looks at the history of South Asian struggles against colonialism and neocolonialism, highlighting lesser-known dissidents as well as iconic figures. This approach reveals an alternate narrative of decolonization, in which achieving a nation-state is not the objective. Maia Ramnath also studies the anarchist vision of alternate society, which closely echoes the concept of total decolonization on the political, economic, social, cultural, and psychological planes. This facilitates not only a reinterpretation of the history of anticolonialism, but insight into the meaning of anarchism itself.

Maia Ramnath teaches at New York University and is a board member of the Institute for Anarchist Studies.

In The Haj to Utopia, Maia Ramnath tells the dramatic story of Ghadar, the Indian anticolonial movement that attempted overthrow of the British Empire. Founded by South Asian immigrants in California, Ghadar—which is translated as “mutiny”—quickly became a global presence in East Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and East Africa. Ramnath brings this epic struggle to life as she traces Ghadar’s origins to the Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, its establishment of headquarters in Berkeley, California, and its fostering by anarchists in London, Paris, and Berlin. Linking Britain’s declaration of war on Germany in 1914 to Ghadar’s declaration of war on Britain, Ramnath vividly recounts how 8,000 rebels were deployed from around the world to take up the battle in Hindustan. The Haj to Utopia demonstrates how far-flung freedom fighters managed to articulate a radical new world order out of seemingly contradictory ideas.