Brian Morris

Brian Morris is professor emeritus of anthropology at Goldsmiths College, London. He received a doctorate in social anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, having done his PhD fieldwork among hunter-gatherers in Southern India. Prior to his academic career, he worked as a tea planter in Malawi where he has done extensive fieldwork. He has written books and articles on topics including ecology, botany, philosophy, history, religion, anthropology, ethnobiology, and social anarchism. After discovering anarchist thought in the mid-1960s, he remained active in various protests and political movements. His previous political books include Kropotkin: The Politics of Community; Ecology and Anarchism: Essays and Reviews on Contemporary Thought; and Bakunin: The Philosophy of Freedom. Other books he has written include Anthropology and the Human Subject, Pioneers of Ecological Humanism, Religion and Anthropology: A Critical Introduction, The History and Conservation of Mammals in Malawi, Insects and Human Life, Animals and Ancestors: An Ethnography, Western Conceptions of the Individual, Anthropology of the Self: The Individual in Cultural Perspective, and Forest Traders: a Socio-economic Study of the Hill Pandaram.

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Praise:

“Peter Kropotkin has been largely ignored as a utopian crackpot, but Brian Morris demonstrates in this wide-ranging and detailed analysis that Kropotkin addressed significantly and perceptively the major issues of the present day.”
—Harold B. Barclay, author of People without Government: An Anthropology of Anarchy

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Praise

“Brian Morris blazed a lot of trails. He is a scholar of genuine daring and great humanity, and his work deserves to be read and debated for a very long time to come.“
—David Graeber, author of Debt: The First 5,000 Years

“This is a marvelously original book bursting with new ideas. I have read it with enormous interest and admiration. This collection of essays is an outstanding contribution to anthropology, environmental thought, and anarchism.“
—Andrej Grubacic, professor and department chair in Anthropology and Social Change, California Institute of Integral Studies

“Before there was ’anarchist anthropology,’ there was Brian Morris. This collection introduces the work of an intrepid pioneer, taking anarchist perspectives to where you would least expect them.“
—Gabriel Kuhn, editor and translator of All Power to the Councils! A Documentary History of the German Revolution of 1918–1919, Liberating Society from the State and Other Writings by Erich Mühsam, and Revolution and Other Writings by Gustav Landauer

“Brian Morris’s scholarship is nothing if not compendious. . . . Morris’s achievement is formidable. His control of such a breadth of material is enviable, and his style is always lucid. He makes difficult work accessible. His prose conveys the unmistakable impression of a superb and meticulous lecturer at work.“
—Anthony P. Cohen, University of Edinburgh

“Morris’s acerbic analysis of established literature is matched by nuanced ethnographic analysis. . . . He writes accessibly about complicated matters.“
—Allen F. Roberts, University of California, Los Angeles

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Book Events

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Reviews

• Libertarian Socialism: Politics in Black and Red— A Review
• Kropotkin: The Politics of Community: A Marx & Philosophy Review
• What is Libertarian Socialism? An Anarchist-Marxist Dialogue
• Libertarian Socialism: Politics in Black and Red — A Libcom review
• Anthropology, Ecology, and Anarchism: A Review
• Kropotkin: The Politics of Community: A Review

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Interviews

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Mentions

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Blog