A review of Christopher B. Zeichmann, Radical Antiquity: Free Love Zoroastrians, Farming Pirates, and Ancient Uprisings (London/New York: Pluto Press, 2025).
Radical Antiquity by Christopher B. Zeichmann is a fun book. It’s a blend of Max Nettlau’s The Early Spring of Anarchy, Norman Cohn’s The Pursuit of the Millennium, Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker’s The Many-Headed Hydra, and studies of stateless societies by the likes of Pierre Clastres and James C. Scott.
Zeichmann intends to uncover radical – indeed, anarchistic – traces in ancient societies. In his words: “We will consider a range of people who not only dreamed of a better way to organize society but who made that dream a reality in how they lived and governed themselves. These were people for whom the anarchistic aspects of democracy were not impediments to be overcome, but sources of exciting possibilities.”
Sounds promising. Zeichmann portrays a variety of communities: rebel slaves, pirates, and cynic philosophers of ancient Greece, Jewish, Zoroastrian, and Christian sects, and even – nice surprise – the Sámi and their traditional nomadic, stateless lifestyle.
I’m sure you could scrutinize the book for historical accuracy. It’s a legitimate way of going about things, but one I don’t find all that interesting. You might find flaws (I wouldn’t know, I’m not a historian of antiquity), but this is how I look at it: What makes Radical Antiquity and similar exploits fun is dealing with societies so far in the past, and with documentation so limited, that we’ll never know what they “really” were like.
Not to be misunderstood: I am all for taking the documentation we have into account. We can’t make a mockery out of historical research and produce tales that are clear fabrications. But when we look at the societies Zeichmann is writing about, we will always partly imagine what they were like. And there is no harm in taking an optimistic angle and flesh out what a society might have been like under the best possible circumstances. The pirate republic of Libertalia most certainly never existed (all of the societies described by Zeichmann were much more real), yet still tickles the fancy of many radicals.
Zeichmann claims that “there are lessons to be learned from antiquity that can inform our own debates about democracy, self-governance, and the characteristics of a free life.” I’m not sure about that. It strikes me as a reflex, something that supposedly needs to be said to justify radical historiography. But can we really learn not just about the societies portrayed by Zeichmann but from them? I’m not sure. We do live in pretty different times. I would stick to the power of inspiration, which I believe is enough to justify radical historiography.
Zeichmann’s stories are not only inspirational, they are entertaining and educational as well. Unfortunately, I wasn’t too impressed by the framing. Both in the beginning and at the end of the book, Zeichmann spends a lot of time discussing ancient Greek democracy, eventually making a leap to the founding fathers and the constitution of the US, daring his readers: “Anarchists, socialists, and other radicals often feel little political connection to early America and antiquity. Indeed, it is simpler to relinquish these legacies than to put in the effort to reclaim them.”
It might be the stubborn teenage anarchist in me, but for me the founding period of the US does indeed “feel tainted,” and I’m very happy to keep it “at arm’s length” (words used by Zeichmann to describe what he seems to think is a short-sighted radical view of to the US constitution having been written by apologists of land-grabbing, genocide, and chattel slavery).
Is it unreasonable that I’m more generous with regard to the ancient societies portrayed in Radical Antiquity? Clearly, many of them didn’t live up to current expectations of equality and diversity either. But they are not used as important reference points in contemporary political debate, such as the US constitution is. They need not be “reclaimed,” they simply serve as sources of inspiration if we want them to. It’s perhaps a more modest take than the one favored by Zeichmann, but I think it makes the book more enjoyable.
Gabriel Kuhn
(October 31, 2025)