Humour, violence and cruelty in late nineteenth century anarchist culture

In this chapter I explore the ways in which late 19th century French anarchism created a link with forms of experimental and subversive humour that has remained an important part of the movement until the present day. Focusing on the culture of humour in anarchist cultural spaces in the Paris of the 1880s and 1890s, I explore the motivations for the conjunction of humour and anarchism, and examine some of the political reverberations of this practice in the context of the rise of anarchist violence or ‘propaganda by the deed’ during the 1890s