History
AK was originally founded in Stirling, Scotland by Ramsey Kanaan in 1987 as a small mail order outlet, named after his mother Ann Kanaan. The project soon expanded, venturing into independent book publishing, and AK Press also now has a branch in Oakland, California. Kanaan and several other members of AK Press left in 2007 to form a new radical publishing company PM Press. AK Press is organized as a workers' co-operative, which means that it is owned by all members of the collective and works without bosses, every member having equal say and equal pay. It operates online through akpress.org in the United States, and akuk.org in Europe. In the US its bookmobile travels around the country (to protests, activist conferences, etc.; mostly by request). In the United Kingdom, they run stalls at similar events. Its books - on topics including anarchism, globalization, and animal rights, among others - are often difficult to find through mainstream outlets. Works published by AK Press include reprints of radical classics as well as original works (see list below).
It also sells clothing, buttons, stickers, and various "anarchist props" like an upside down map of the world and the red and black flag of anarcho-syndicalism. AK Press has released spoken word albums by distinguished radicals such as Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Jello Biafra, Arundhati Roy and Mumia Abu-Jamal and music by artists including David Rovics and Utah Phillips.
Read more about this topic: AK Press
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“If you look at history you’ll find that no state has been so plagued by its rulers as when power has fallen into the hands of some dabbler in philosophy or literary addict.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)
“Systematic philosophical and practical anti-intellectualism such as we are witnessing appears to be something truly novel in the history of human culture.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)