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Secondary sourceBook1900

Der Anarchismus

Paul Eltzbacher · 1900

A 1900 scholarly study by Paul Eltzbacher that classified Max Stirner as one of the founding thinkers of anarchism.

This study's classification of Stirner as a founding anarchist thinker shaped his later reputation.

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About this source

What it is

This is an academic chapter, "Der Anarchismus" (Anarchism), written by the German legal scholar Paul Eltzbacher, drawn from his 1900 book of the same name and reprinted in the Handbuch der Politik.

Eltzbacher surveyed the main anarchist thinkers of his time and classified them according to their ideas.

Why it matters

Eltzbacher's study was one of the first serious scholarly attempts to define anarchism and sort its thinkers into categories. By including Max Stirner among them, he helped shape how later readers understood Stirner — as a founding figure of individualist anarchism — even though Stirner himself never used that label for his own philosophy.

The book was translated into several languages and discussed by major anarchist figures such as Kropotkin and Tolstoy, showing how influential this classification became.

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  • Why might scholars disagree about whether Stirner was really an

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Max Stirner on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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