Talk:The Anarchist Cookbook/Archive 1

Cookbooks by anarchists.
Quote: "Real food cookbooks by anarchists are being published by groups including Infoshop.org (http://www.infoshop.org). Many of these cookbooks are vegan" What the hell does this have to do with anything? Hey, can I include my mom's website too, because she happens to write cookbooks! BUY BUY BUY! --84.176.104.18 20:29, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * It's important because lots of people ignorantly connect the anarchist cookbook with anarchism, which most anarchists dislike. As such we have appropriated the name as a joke. Other pages often refer to other uses of a term or an instance of that term being spun off in other ways into a culture, and that is a great example of a spin-off of the anarchist cookbook.
 * It doesn't provide any useful information to the user. It seems more like some sort of advertisement to me, I'm going to remove it unless an actual GOOD reason for having it there is posted here. ♠ SG →Talk 22:59, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I am about to put in a mention of the vegan cookbooks again, but I will leave out the part about Infoshop.org being involved. Therefore it is not advertisement at all.

New Edits about the Movie by 24.61.98.230
Is Johnny Red actually said to be a member of NAMBLA? He does write in his journal that he thinks our demonizing of romantic relationships between adults and children is "bourgeois" and will change after the revolution, but I don't remeber any mentions of NAMBLA (and I watched it twice in two days just because I was so blown away by how strange the movie was). And yeah, it wasn't that great, and may have been right-wing propaganda. I know a lot of anarchists who have seen it think so. It looked like it would be good from the synopsis, but it was a let down. C'mon, teaming up with neo-nazis?! It did have it's moments (like subverting the historical reenactment, "camping" in the store, and squating in the library) though. The Ungovernable Force 03:06, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Also, I'm pretty sure that the DVD cover included is actually from a different film altogether. There was, IIRC, an older film called 'The Anarchist Cookbook' featuring German punks who attempt to blow up a building and fail, only to discover that the device is still there years later.  Re-edit: Nevermind, I am a complete fool, that is all Madashell 01:58, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
 * That movie is called In Case of Fire. I actually want to see it. But you are right about your suspicions with the DVD cover, none of those people are in the movie. I doubt it's from a different movie--I think it's more just a weird anomoly. The Ungovernable Force 03:27, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I checked on IMDB and, the DVD cover is, apparently, from the right film, though like you say, I'm sure none of them were in the film. On the other hand, that film was shit anyway. Madashell 11:38, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Movie
Does anyone have objections to giving the movie its own page? If not, I'll be gald to do it. Please leave me an objection if you have one. It is not directly connected to the actual book. Caf3623 22:15, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Good idea. The Ungovernable Force 18:35, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Definitely needs to be split. Benashbe 01:31, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

f.y.i. I made its own page the other day Caf3623 01:56, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Uses in different media
I'm not a native English speaker, so I don't want to include any new section into the article, so I'll just put this here... Should this wikipedia article contain a list of references to the book in other books, movies, etc? If so, here's one: The book is confiscated from Eli's locker in episode 19 of the second Veronica Mars Series. Christoph Neuroth 22:47, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

69 or 70?
There seems to be some disagreement over when it was first released. I think it was 70, and since the people changing it haven't given a reason, I'm going to put it back to 1970. This is backed up by a Washington Post article on the death of the publisher.  Ungovernable Force  Got something to say? 06:24, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

NPOV
Most real anarchists condemn the Anarchist Cookbook, I get what this sentance is trying to say and suspect that it is probally true that a lot of people in the anarchist movement reject the book but talk of 'real anarchists' is POV.--JK the unwise 11:33, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I wrote that sentence, and as far as I know the author never claimed to be an anarchist or be strongly influenced by anarchist ideologies. You can edit out the word 'real' if you want.

a real anarchist is someone who wants to creat an egalitarian and fair world, not someone who wants "chaos".

absolutly not, your view of 'real' anarchism is a form promoted by contemporary left-wing extremist, and as such can only be considered POV, through the ages anarchy has meant a great deal of things and will likely mean a multitude of new and other things in the future. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.92.117.233 (talk) 17:25, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

"Removed link to copyvio page at wikiquote"
Why is it copyvio? It is only a few quotes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.241.137.240 (talk) 21:08, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Because the "quotes" to which you refer are just passages from this book, cut & pasted into wikiquote. L0b0t (talk) 21:47, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * And? – 129.241.137.240 (talk) 22:09, 2 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Linking to a copyright violation is, in and of itself, not a copyright infringment. Perhaps more germane here is the situation that wikiquote is a sister Wikimedia Foundation project. You may be surprised to learn that they too have rules and policies to prevent copyright infringement. If there is infringement on wikiquote you do not try and hide it by refusing to link there, you take the issue up on the appropriate wikiquote page. Oh, and unless there has been radical editing of that page since you ignorantly called it a copyright infringement, you'll get the education on copyright and fair use that I can't be arsed to give you. --Brian McNeil /talk 17:10, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

The biggest hole in this article, major problem.
the reason so many people know about out the anarchists cookbook is because ever since the text wound up on the Internet bomb enthusiasts have slowly been adding thousands of pages of content to it or simply starting their own. There are now thousands of versions of the book on the internet many containing not just information on explosives but also hacking, home made drugs, hypnosis, and even how to kill someone and not get caught in one version thats this books legacy not the original print but the chain reaction it caused anyway you want to download a copy to verify what i said here is a link to a page www.angelfire.com/music6/totallykiwi/new.pdf and a lot of good information http://www.anarchistcookbookz.com/the-anarchist-cookbook-faq/ 112.135.64.44 (talk) 12:13, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Update: (Different User) This book has 2 versions, the original book, and an electronic version made on bulletin boards, that is totally different from the book, but adopted this. Sources need to be checked for versions.

Interview with the author

 * I wrote the Anarchist Cookbook in 1969. Now I see its premise as flawed.84.152.37.209 (talk) 21:41, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

The book is not "illegal" in the UK
[This source http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7030096.stm] states several things:
 * an unnamed boy is in court on terrorism act charges
 * he has not yet been prosecuted, or given any defense
 * it is alleged that he has a copy of The Anarchist Cookbook
 * he faces two charges, neither of which are guaranteed to be broken by possessing or obtaining the cookbook.

It may turn out that the court finds the material in the cookbook useless for terrorism. He may have more accurate manuals for terrorism than the anarchist cookbook. Or maybe he has actual bomb-making materials. While a lot of people are in histrionics about this news article, it's not conclusive that possession of this ancient, useless book has suddenly been criminalised.

As it happens, I am in possession of bomb-making equipment, as are most households in the UK - I have a packet of flour, which is enough to make an explosive bomb all by itself. The knowledge that school chemistry teachers impart to kids is more than enough to make even more dangerous bombs. Basically, the Terrorism Act contains overbroad clauses that could potentially lock up anyone in Britain for technically breaching them. Good for us citizens that the UK government only uses these law on uppity Muslims, isn't it? 192.18.1.36 11:08, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

''Or maybe he has actual bomb-making materials. '' That's the point. It is said that he's facing two charges, one for possession of material for terrorist purpose. Which material ? We need to know more about that before going further.

As an additional nitpick, while there are such things as "9mm rifles", they are extremely rare and that phrase is generally a warning sign that the reporter doesn't actually know what kind of gun it is... Dmesg (talk) 16:05, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Hiya, I not an expert on editing wiki pages, maybe someone could help, it looks like having a copy of the cookbook is indeed an offence in the UK : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29476861 95.144.141.156 (talk) 13:39, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Copyright?
I'm not sure about this assertion in the article; "When the book was published by Lyle Stuart, the copyright was taken out in the publisher's name", -since you don't 'take out a copyright' in someone's name. Copyright inherently belongs to the creator of a work aiui. While you can give a copyright grant which would transfer some of the rights relating to the work (but not all), you can reclaim those rights 35 years after the publication was made or 40 years after the grant of rights, whichever comes first.Number36 (talk) 01:00, 25 September 2013 (UTC)


 * You are describing copyright law as it is now. Copyright law in the US 40 years ago, when the book was published, was very different, and at that time you had to file and pay a fee to get a copyright, and it could be and often was assigned to a named party other than the author. Whether Lyle Stuart actually was the copyright holder of record I don't know, but it's quite possible that he was. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.88.88.127 (talk) 21:55, 6 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Actually, there was no fee required to obtain a copyright in 1971. You published a work with a copyright notice, it was copyrighted.  That changed in 1978, making it even easier.  Registration and its associated fee has not been a requirement for copyright since at least 1909 (although renewal, with fees, was still required after the initial 28-year term until not too long ago).


 * Reading between the lines here, it seems like Powell had a fairly standard publishing contract with Stuart, where the copyright passed to the publisher, and would revert to the author if the book went out of print. Since it never went out of print, Powell never got the copyright back.


 * He could still terminate the assignment, but not for 56 years, i.e., 2027. TJRC (talk) 23:58, 3 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Copyright has belonged to Delta Press (http://www.deltapress.com) since 2002. Is it appropriate to add links to the current publishers, or too much like selling?

EmyP (talk) 13:27, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Using primary sources, such as the publisher site, would smell too much like selling to me. We should have independent sources confirming this. Looking at the site it doesn't seem to say they're the copyright holder, just that they're selling it.  Я ehevkor ✉  16:39, 19 December 2013 (UTC)


 * The copyright holder that the article claims died in 2006. I believe then it is to his estate. He, however, seems to not have an estate. I believe that it is safe to assume it is legally in the public domain.--Chocolatechip65 (talk) 22:48, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Salon article dead link
Citation #2 for the Salon article 'blowing up the anarchist cookbook' is a dead link. Its new URL is: http://www.salon.com/2000/09/18/anarchy/ I can not seem to change this myself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.80.54.216 (talk) 09:40, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
 * ✅ Updated the ref. Good eyes! All the best Ajpolino (talk) 16:05, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Section for unreliability?
Hi all, I was hoping a section could be added to this article regarding the purported unreliability and inaccuracy of The Anarchist Cookbook (and also the danger of attempting its advice). This would help to qualify the amount of real danger it presents to society, and also be a small social service for anyone unfortunate enough to get their hands on a copy. I don't know of any good sources for this other than the one currently cited. Dcoetzee 08:32, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Amongst revolutionary Anarchists in the 1980s it was commonly believed that the book was an FBI plant, one of the defendants in the Person Unknown conspiracy trial said so when cross-examined about the book....this belief althougb apparently mistaken was partly because of the unreliability and danger of the instructions. ¬¬¬¬

This is a much needed section. This article mentions nothing about how ineffectual the book is. The rudimentary knowledge it purports to give tends to be inferior to that which is easily learned, especially nowadays with community colleges and online courses, via introductory college courses. The book attempts to recreate procedures without the use of specialized chemical equipment and glassware, but it is impossible to replace most of the glassware. As such, the book still makes use of a decent collection of glassware. If you have access to this portion of the required glassware, then you have access to all the proper glassware. Why would you arbitrarily decided not to utilize some of it merely because it can be replaced with highly inferior kitchenware? It makes no sense. Furthermore, specialized knowledge is required to carry out the procedures given, and this book makes no mention of where or how to acquire this knowledge.

Such a section regarding the book's ineffectual and unreliable nature, backed with scientific sources, would do wonders to dismiss any and all claims by ignorant media publications that insist this book can, in anyway whatsoever, aid those seeking to commit terrorist acts. The book is the perfect scapegoat; it has provided far more use to those wishing to scapegoat it than it has to those wishing to cause actual harm.

I am not entirely familiar with Wikipedia's hierarchy of credible sources, but surely scientific sources supersede those of the news media. If such scientific sources do not exist, I can only suspect as such because the book is exceedingly ridiculous. The irony then becomes that Wikipedia operates with respect to credible sources, and the only 'credible sources' available become those of the news media.

&#124; &#124; skubb &#124; &#124; 22:41, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia, like all encyclopedias, is a tertiary source, meaning that it summarizes the relevant reliable, secondary sources. If you have such sources that cover this angle, provide them for discussion. However, if your angle is only covered in unreliable sources—say, opinions in community newsletters or Usenet/Listservs or Twitter comments—then by extension, secondary sources have not considered the angle important enough to cover. We follow the reliable, secondary sources and rely on their expertise/vetting/fact-checking/opinions, since they have the pedigree of editorial credibility that Wikipedia's "anonymous" can never have. The "news media" does qualify as reliable, secondary sourcing, but only if the site actually has reliability—there's a large variance between Gawker and the New York Times, as there is between Buzzfeed's community listicles and Buzzfeed's political coverage, as there is between some random news-like site used on Reddit (or a partisan site) and Politifact. czar  15:11, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Title.
Two comments: It should be Cookbook; and it was certainly not written by an 80 year-old actor (see link to William Powell). I don't want to change anything myself because I have to read the whole article first. --KF 08:23, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * The title is clearly The Anarchist Cookbook - see Barnes & Noble for a cover shot, for example. I'll move it in a few days unless there are objections. Tualha 02:07, 14 December 2003 (UTC)

Copyright violation of Amazon.com review by Powell.
What happened to the long quote by the author? I think we should maybe put that back in. Any one agree?

On another subject: what's the source of Powell's statement, and can we use it? Could be a copyvio. Tualha 02:10, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * I believe the source of Powell's statement is a review on Amazon.com. There has also been a note from his local Sherrif somewhere. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ddhix 2002 (talk • contribs) 16:18, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Recipes for Disaster and CrimethInc
''A text published on CrimethInc. criticized the cookbook because it was "not composed or released by anarchists, not derived from anarchist practice, not intended to promote freedom and autonomy or challenge repressive power--and was barely a cookbook, as the recipes in it are notoriously unreliable."''

I reverted this sentence back to my original version because as far as I know, the criticism was not from a text on the crimethinc website (which I assume to be the meaning of "published on CrimethInc). I found the criticism on the wikipedia page about Recipes for Disaster: An Anarchist Cookbook and it is probably contained within the book (I have not yet had the pleasure to see the book myself). Anyways, there is no crimethinc website, just a lot of sites by various groups calling themselves crimethinc. There is no official site though. Unless someone can actually provide a URL to a crimethinc site with the criticism, I think it should be kept as it is now.
 * I have the book now (yay) and it does not contain that quote. I still don't know where it is originally from though, so I'm leaving it as it is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.142.232.164 (talk) 07:39, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Ozark Press Edition 2002
The book didn't cease publication in 1991; I'm holding in my hands at this moment a copyrighted Ozark Press edition 2002. ¬¬¬¬ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.115.106.148 (talk) 08:31, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

New source
http://harpers.org/blog/2015/02/burn-after-reading/

February 27, 2015, 8:00 am Burn After Reading In 1971, William Powell published The Anarchist Cookbook, a guide to making bombs and drugs at home. He spent the next four decades fighting to take it out of print.

By Gabriel Thompson — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gamaliel (talk • contribs) 04:39, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Recent law changes
Hi, given recent law changes it may now be illegal in the UK to actually search online for this document or even something remotely similar. Case in point, someone over here got in trouble for searching certain key terms despite only circumstantial evidence that they were in fact guilty of anything. Key terms include "how to make a bluetooth remote", "modify infrared helicopter" and a few others I won't go into here but it is all in the relevant newspaper article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.3.100.49 (talk) 08:08, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

General Formatting
Hey, ya'll. In review of the headers themselves, I think that perhaps we could streamline some of the topics themselves by simplifying/paring down the number of topics. Like I think that it would be more effective to combine the legality and reception, unless we simply want to expand on the reception section. That section seems to be rather limited and focuses more on anarchist philosophy, which would be more appropriate in the legality section, rather than the book's reception. Likewise, the publication status and online presence are too similar of topics to be placed in different categories. Tell me what you guys think and if there's any way to better streamline this article. Mac507 (talk) 21:00, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Realistically, it just needs to be completely rewritten, ideally from the Larabee source. The section titles will flow from her organization. czar  04:17, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

Good Article Status
Seeing how this page was restructured a few years back and I just went through to verify sources, I am considering initiating the GA review process. This article is likely a B status at least but it would be ideal to have a 3rd party verify it. Are there any other out withstanding issues that need to be taken care of prior to this? Etriusus (talk) 01:01, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Hey you
Down me the book 2600:100B:B1D8:7C32:50A0:BA31:14C3:5E69 (talk) 01:39, 6 December 2021 (UTC)