<P> The book was released in the context of the dispute in the newly resurgent anarchist movement between critics of civilisation (primarily anarcho - primitivists exemplified by John Zerzan) and its supporters (notably Murray Bookchin). Although sharply disagreeing on the merits of civilisation, technology and language, both Zerzan and Bookchin derided postmodernism as disempowering the individual and reinforcing the existing order . Another significant factor in the intellectual climate of the book's release was the rediscovery in the 1990s of anarchist theory within academia . </P> <P> Although foundational work had been done on the philosophy of postanarchism by radical theorists such as Andrew Koch and Todd May, From Bakunin to Lacan introduced a slightly different and more substantive formulation of the theory . </P> <P> Philosophy professor Todd May asserts that the overall purpose of the book is "to offer a critique of the way power, and specifically political power, is commonly conceived". Newman persistently questions how anarchism can refrain from reproducing the forms of oppression that it strives to overcome . </P> <P> Newman incorporates concepts from post-structuralist thought such as post-humanism and anti-essentialism into classical anarchism . Unlike May, whose post-anarchism is a combination of the two, Newman attempts to move beyond both anarchism and post-structuralism . He proposes that "by using the poststructuralist critique one can theorize the possibility of political resistance without essentialist guarantees: a politics of postanarchism...by incorporating the moral principles of anarchism with the postructuralist critique of essentialism, it may be possible to arrive at an ethically workable, politically valid, and genuinely democratic notion of resistance to domination". </P>

From bakunin to lacan anti-authoritarianism and the dislocation of power