During the early Cold War, the anarchist tradition was kept alive by Dwight Macdonald’s lively journal, politics (1944–9). Avoiding the era’s Manichean politics, Macdonald published independent thinkers who rejected the platitudes of both Cold-War America and Soviet-style state socialism. By the 1960s, some of the New Left’s less dogmatic members rediscovered anarchist thought. Murray Bookchin’s “post-scarcity anarchism” served as a rejoinder to Marxist-Leninist sectarianism, while Noam Chomsky, the prolific linguist-activist, rekindled interest in anarcho-syndicalism.

More recently, younger “post-leftist” anarchists have questioned the anti-authoritarian credentials of Bookchin and Chomsky. This new tendency distinguished by a militant opposition to technology, received considerable media attention during protests against corporate globalization during the 1999 Seattle, WA meeting of the World Trade Organization.