Josiah Warren, the first American anarchist

Josiah Warren (1798-1874) was a musician when he moved from Boston to Cincinnati at age 20, where he worked as a music teacher and orchestra leader and also manufactured a lamp he invented. He moved his family to New Harmony, IN in the mid-1820s to participate in Robert Owens’ communitarian experiment, but left within two years, rejecting Owens’ views on the ideal society. Warren developed his own philosophy on a principle of the “sovereignty of the individual”, and society without a state. The author of this small book began with a long essay on the philosophy of anarchism. In addition to a biography of Warren, and explanations of his philosophical ideas, there are extended descriptions of the anarchist communities that he founded.