Against His-Story, Against Leviathan! is a 1983 book by Fredy Perlman

Fredy Perlman

Fredy Perlman was an author, publisher and activist. His most popular work, the book Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!, details the rise of state domination with a retelling of history through the Hobbesian metaphor of the Leviathan. The book remains a major source of inspiration for...

, for which he is best known. It is a personal critical perspective on contemporary civilization

Civilization

Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...

 and society. The work defined anarcho-primitivism

Anarcho-primitivism

Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization. According to anarcho-primitivism, the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence gave rise to social stratification, coercion, and alienation...

 for the first time, and was a major source of inspiration for anti-civilization perspectives in contemporary anarchism

Contemporary anarchism

Anarchism is a political philosophy encompassing theories and attitudes which consider the state, as compulsory government, to be unnecessary, harmful, and/or undesirable, and favors the absence of the state ....

, most notably on the thought of philosopher John Zerzan

John Zerzan

John Zerzan is an American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocate drawing upon the ways of life of prehistoric humans as an inspiration for what a free society should look like...

. In 2006 the book was translated into French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 under the title Contre le Léviathan, contre sa légende and into Turkish

Turkish language

Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

as Er-Tarih’e Karşı, Leviathan’a Karşı

External links

• Against His-Story, Against Leviathan! complete text online
• Against His-Story, Against Leviathan! complete text online (alternative)
• at the Natterjack Press