Conville & Walsh
literary agency
The World that Never Was
A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists and Secret Agents
- Author: Alex Butterworth
- Category: Non-fiction Current Affairs / Politics
- Publisher: Bodley Head (UK)/Pantheon (US)
- Pub date: 30 March 2010
- Length: 384 pages
About The World that Never Was
Almost any paragraph packs more action than an entire Dan Brown novel
Francis Wheen, FINANCIAL TIMES
This is an amazing book full of incredible people, all of whom turn out to be real, and unbelievable stories, all of which turn out be true… a genuine tour de force
- David Aaronovitch
a riveting account, teeming with intrigue and adventure and packed with the most astonishing characters
- NEW STATESMAN
a compelling narrative history both of a generation of demonised and battered – but optimistic – revolutionaries… and of the political police forces ranged against them
- GUARDIAN
an impressive work which will captivate those unfamiliar with anarchist history and teach even specialists much that they did not know before
- INDEPENDENT
The last years of the nineteenth century saw international terrorism make its first, furious appearance. Anarchist cells carried out a wave bombings and assassinations across Europe and in America – or so, at least, the governments of France, Britain and especially Russia liked their populations to believe.
The truth, however, was far murkier. Infiltration and surveillance comprised one part of the armoury of the security services, but equally important was the use of agents provocateurs and black propaganda. Under Pyotr Rachkovsky, head of the Paris station of the Tsar’s overseas intelligence agency, the policing methods of Russian despotism spread to the West and the line between incitement and prevention became blurred. Only now is it possible to gauge the dangerous depths of their deceptions, and the terrible extent of their impact on the history of the twentieth century.
During the fin de siècle, the popular imagination was filled with fantasies of militant Anarchism: of airborne attack and viral plagues. THE WORLD THAT NEVER WAS examines the human stories that lie behind this hysteria. Taking the form of a group biography of eight key figures in the radical movement – two Russian, two British, two French, a German and an Italian – it tells the story of their interweaving lives during the period between the collapse of the Paris Commune in 1871 and the failed Russian Revolution of 1905. Epic in scope, the book traces its protagonists’ movements from the furthest reaches of Siberia to the Metropolitan Opera House in New York; from the wastes of a New Caledonian penal colony to the watchmaker communities of Switzerland. And, all along, the agents of the police are in their midst, trying to manipulate events to their own ends.
THE WORLD THAT NEVER WAS will pose the question of whether secret servants of the state who abandon the principles of the society they serve improve the security of their populations or exacerbate the danger. It will consider how the oppressed are radicalized, how violence begets violence and whether a tolerant, open and just society is its own best defence against terrorism.
About the Author
Alex Butterworth is a writer, dramatist and researcher who has worked across a wide range of media; his projects include television drama-documentaries, virtual online communities, educational websites for major cultural institutions and action-adventure games. He is the co-author of the prize-winning history, POMPEII: The Living City, has recently published his second book THE WORLD THAT NEVER WAS and contributed to the BFI survey of developments in the digital field, New Screen Media. He took a first degree in English from the University of Oxford, holds an MA in Interactive Media from the Royal College of Art and is currently an Honorary Fellow at the University of Birmingham. He lives in Oxford with his wife and two children.