In the popular imagination William Blake is known as an opium muncher and poet. Peter Marshall embarks on a journey to dispel the myths that surround this radical thinker who lived over two centuries ago. In Marshall's words "he (William Blake) demands bread for all and a fair return for a fairs day work. He would like to see an end to capital, tax and empire. He calls for complete sexual and racial equality and celebrates universal toleration".

Peter Marshall examines the influences on Blake's life, he looks at the events that shaped his visionary ideas and dissects the society he lived in.

Reading this little pamphlet just 65 pages long gives you an insight into how the historical process washes out everything that doesn't fit into the dominant ideology of the period. Just two centuries after Blake's death the radical egalitarian aspects of his thoughts and works have been banished to the dustbin of history. The exoskeleton survives providing a framework on which every historian and their dog hangs out their prejudices about Blake.

Marshall has ignored the historical interpretations of Blake's work and has gone back to the original sources to try to establish what Blake was trying to say. He has placed Blake in his historical context (No man is an island) and has tried to discover the formative influences on his work. Marshall believes that Blake like his contemporary, William Godwin, was a forerunner of the anarchist movement. Extrapolating from Marshall's analysis, it's possible to see Blake's ideas as a logical extension of the Levellers ideas.

All in all William Blake a visionary Anarchist is a well thought out exercise that places Blake among anarchism's significant thinkers.

Thanks to Michael Carbines for sending me this booklet to review.

WILLIAM BLAKE VISIONARY ANARCHIST is available post free (Australia) from Anarres Books.