The British magazine Last Hours recently presented a glowing review of the fifth issue of Rolling Thunder, which we present here:

Rolling Thunder #5
September 24th, 2008 · review by Tom Fiction

I first encountered CrimethInc. some years ago as I sat in a cramped living room chatting with friends. On the coffee table lay a truly battered and well thumbed copy of Days of War, Nights of Love (CrimethInc.’s flagship publication). I was a young punk kid lightly politicised by the threat of war in Iraq but with no real knowledge of radical culture. Anarchy was just a word printed on the sleeves of my parents old punk records. The text and images I found in those faded pages offered something new and engaging that I had never experienced.

A couple of years passed and Days of War was joined on my bookcase by more astute radical literature whilst its felt like CrimethInc. had almost gone into hibernation. Or so it seemed. The last few months have seen a flurry of activity from CrimethInc. with a new publication (the excellent Expect Resistance) and a new issue of Rolling Thunder, their sporadically released anarchist journal of dangerous living. This, the fifth in the series represents how much CrimethInc. has developed over the years. The contents present some of the best critical analysis of the anarchist movement both in the United States and in Europe I have read in recent years, largely focusing on the effectiveness of (direct) actions as well as how they can fail and how to respond when they do. Highlights come in the form of a report on the green scare (the FBI’s crackdown on members of ALF and ELF) and what it means to be a government informant, as well as a well written and descriptive report of the events surrounding the 2007 G8 protests.

Rolling Thunder is not likely to act as a recruiting tool for anarchism but provides necessary analysis and debate on some of the most crucial topics activists face today. A worthy read for activists left feeling helpless and demotivated by most conventional forms of resistance.

Note: In the original text, “CrimethInc.” appeared with incorrect punctuation (as “Crimethinc”). We’ve corrected that throughout, along with the other spelling and typographical errors in the original, same as we must for the RAND corporation and others.