The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists and Secret Agents

The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists and Secret Agents

by Alex Butterworth (Author)

Synopsis

The last years of the nineteenth century saw the birth of a new phenomenon: international terrorism. Bombings and assassinations shook the great cities of Europe and America, threatening social order. Fiendish networks of anarchist conspiritors were blamed and the public whipped into a frenzy of anxiety. The reality was rather different. These dramatic events were only the most visible part of a longer, clandestine struggle waged between the forces of revolution and reaction, in which little was as it seemed. Alex Butterworth interweaves group biography, cultural history and meticulous detective work to create a revelatory account of the age. Both intimate and panoramic, it is a story with uncanny resonances for today.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 560
Edition: 1
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 03 Mar 2011

ISBN 10: 0099551926
ISBN 13: 9780099551928
Book Overview: A masterly exploration of the strange twists and turns of history, The World That Never Was is a true story of dreamers, schemers, anarchists and secret agents of the late nineteenth century.

Media Reviews
Exhilarating...almost any paragraph packs more action than an entire Dan Brown novel * Financial Times *
Butterworth has created an impressive work which will captivate those unfamiliar with anarchist history and teach even specialists much that they did not know before * Independent *
Compelling and insightful... The World That Never Was is a compelling narrative history both of a generation of demonised and battered - but optimistic - revolutionaries...and of the political police forces ranged against them -- Stuart Christie * Guardian *
A rich and passionate account of the world's first international terrorist campaign... Brilliant... A thrilling and important book * Sunday Times *
One of the most absorbing depictions of the dark underside of radical politics in many years...a riveting account, teeming with intrigue and adventure and packed with the most astonishing characters * New Statesman *
Author Bio
Born in 1969, Alex Butterworth is an historian, writer and dramatist whose first book Pompeii: The Living City won the Longmans-History Today New Generation Book of the Year. He lives in Oxford.