The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists and Secret Agents
by Alex Butterworth

* The last third of the nineteenth century saw the world in flux. Science vied with religion to represent the soul of man, and technological advances opened the possibility of new ways of living. Yet as the world sank into a long depression, untrammelled capitalism continued to stretch the gulf between rich and poor. From Russia to America, across Western Europe and beyond, governments already unsettled by major shifts in geopolitical power were threatened by growing social unrest and the rise of socialism. And looming over them was the spectre of the Anarchist and the shadow of international terrorism.* A Tsar and an Empress, Presidents and plutocrats were all vulnerable to the assassin’s bombs and bullets, but so too was bourgeois society in its cafes and opera houses. It was a new kind of Terror that could strike anywhere and that permeated deep into the imagination of the times. Its true weapon, though, was not dynamite but fear itself: a fact quickly grasped by those whose job it was to protect the powerful. Yet in a credulous age, when hoaxers and forgers thrived, the fictions spun by police chiefs and their agent provocateurs were often no less beguiling. And out of the short-term actions of these forgotten individuals grew the noxious delusions of worldwide conspiracy that would poison the century to come.* A masterly exploration of the strange twists and turns of history, The World That Never Was follows the interweaving lives of several key anarchists, and of the secret police who tracked them. Framed by the Paris Commune of 1871 and the 1905 revolution in St Petersburg, and spread across five continents, theirs is the story of a generation that saw the dream of Utopia crumble, to be replaced by a dangerous desperation. Here is a revelatory portrait of an era with uncanny echoes of our own.

Reviews

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. Against a backdrop of late nineteenth century Europe and America in which staggering industrial progress went hand-in-hand with mass poverty and class struggle, Butterworth brilliantly teases out the paths and plots of the dedicated revolutionaries, deadly dilettantes, spies, informants, agents provocateurs, false counts and femmes fatales who made up the international anarchist movement, and its enemies. A genuine tour de force
David Aaronovitch 

One of the most absorbing depictions of the dark underside of radical politics in many years. … Butterworth has opted to present the anarchists in a mode that emphasises narrative over analysis. The result is a riveting account, teeming with intrigue and adventure and packed with the most astonishing characters. One cannot help wishing there were more extended analysis, however, for when Butterworth does offer broader observations, they are exceptionally astute.
John Gray (New Statesman)

In this rich and passionate account of the world’s first international terrorist campaign ... the disquieting echoes of our own times are impossible to ignore ...In a brilliant move, Butterworth also pursues the counterplotters and agents provocateurs behind what he calls the “first international ‘war on terror’? ” ... underpinned by impressive research and a genuine argument ... this is a thrilling and important book — not least for its unmasking of the forces of reaction.
 (Sunday Times)

A narrative taut with intrigue and freighted with contemporarysignificance
Bryce Christensen (Booklist)

Intriguing, provocative and written with a novelist's eye for detail, this book is an engrossing journey into a murky, subterranean world.
Mike Rapport (BBC History Magazine)

Historian Butterworth makes a first-rate addition to the growing list of books dealing with terrorism's origins and history... Delivering a virtuoso performance, Butterworth adds the hope that history will not repeat itself and that a successful new bloody ideology will not create the next scourge
 (Publisher's Weekly - starred review)

Sweeping, extensively researched
Leo McKinstry (Express)

Compelling and insightful… The World That Never Was is a compelling narrative history both of a generation of demonised and battered – but optimistic – revolutionaries…and of the political police forces ranged against them
Stuart Christie (Guardian)