John Zerzan Add a review

John Edward Zerzan ( ZUR-zən; born August 10, 1943) is an American anarcho-primitivist author and radio host. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocate drawing upon the ways of life of hunter-gatherers as an inspiration for what a free society should look like. Subjects of his criticism include domestication and symbolic thought (such as language, number, art and the concept of time).

His eight major books are Elements of Refusal (1988), Future Primitive and Other Essays (1994), Running on Emptiness (2002), Against Civilization: Readings and Reflections (2005), Twilight of the Machines (2008), Why hope? The Stand Against Civilization (2015), A People's History of Civilization (2019), and When We Are Human: Notes from the Age of Pandemics (2021). In 2024, he released his memoir The Education of an Anarchist: A Memoir.