In this essay, Marcus Collins considers what the Beatles thought about anarchists and what anarchists thought about the Beatles in sixties Britain. He identifies curiosity and ambivalence on both sides, as anarchists sought to contend with the strange phenomena of Beatlemania, the counterculture and pop stars engaged in political campaigns.
Marcus Collins is Senior Lecturer in Cultural History at Loughborough University. He is author of The Beatles and Sixties Britain (2020), Modern Love (2003), co-author of Why Study History? (2020) and editor of The Permissive Society and Its Enemies (2007). He is currently writing the second volume of his study of the Beatles (The Beatles’ World) and a short history of British documentaries about lesbians and gay men (Arrested Development: Broadcasting and Homosexuality from Wolfenden to AIDS) as well as embarking on a collaborative project on attitudinal change in the global sixties.
Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group. For more information on the ARG, visit www.lboro.ac.uk/subjects/politics-international-studies/research/arg/ . You can follow us on Twitter @arglboro
Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Hear more at https://soundcloud.com/user-178917365
Artwork by Sam G: https://www.instagram.com/passerinecreations
Essay #79: Sean Scalmer, ‘Direct Action: The Invention of a Transnational Concept’
Essay #78: Sam C. Tenorio, ‘Black Cataclysm: Anarchism and Ruination’
Essay #77: Nolan Bennett, ‘Alexander Berkman’s Anti-Prison Anarchism’
Essay #76: Peterson Silva, ‘Mechanical Failures and Anarchist Freedom’
Essay #75: Chris Robé, ‘Anarchism, Video Activism and State Repression’
Essay #74: Pranay Somayajula, ‘Nationhood Beyond Nationalism: Towards an Anarchist Politics of Anti-Colonial Liberation’
Essay #73: Christopher Powell, ‘Shame Economies’
Essay #72: Elena Pagani, ‘Interpersonal Freedom as Pluralist Radical Horizontality’
Essay #71: Deric Shannon, ‘The Anarchist Critique of Capitalism’
Essay #70: Sonia Hernández, ‘For a Just and Better World’
Essay #69: Benjamin Franks, ‘Anarchism and Elections’
Essay #68: Carne Ross, ‘Anarchy is Love’
Essay #67: William Marling, ‘Anarchism and Rhetoric’
Essay #66: Rhiannon Firth, ‘Disaster Anarchy’
Essay #65: Gabriele Montalbano, ‘Anarchism and Labour Movements in Tunisia’
Essay #64: Javier Sethness Castro, ‘Queer Tolstoy: A Psychobiography’
Essay #63: Ryan Essex, ‘Anarchy, and Why It Matters for Health’
Essay #62: Clara Vlessing, ‘Remembering Louise Michel: From Anarchist Assassin to Banksy Boat’
Essay #61: Robert Leach, ‘Subverting Good Order’
Essay #60: Chi Shing LEE, ‘Anarchism and Nationalism: Ng Chung-yin’s Anarchist Envisioning of Hong Kong in the Early 1970s’
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Voices of Misery Podcast
House of Whimsical Terror
Just Dumb Enough Podcast
Stuff You Should Know
Timcast IRL