The Incomplete, True, Authentic, And Wonderful History Of May Day, by Peter Linebaugh

To call this book a history is a bit dishonest. This book’s title presents itself as a work of scholarship on May Day, perhaps a bit irreverently so, but what it is happens to be a rambling and highly repetitive (and frequently off-topic) series of essays written by the author on the occasion and sometimes the topic of May Day. Strangely, the author fancies himself an authority on how one is to celebrate and observe May Day, and considers himself a real expert on the day and an expert on a lot of other things about which he has no knowledge or insight whatsoever. Like most contemporaries, he considers himself to be an expert on biblical law and shows a reflexive hostility to law and order, whether that is to be found by soldiers or Puritans of one stripe or another. The value of this book–a slight value, but a value to be sure–is mainly in showing what people who are passionate about May Day and who have studied rather partial histories think about the day and tie it to political struggles as well as a long trail of heathen worship that they celebrate on the precise ground that such observances are condemned in the Bible for, namely their sextual licentiousness as well as their tendency towards anarchy and disorder. If this book is by no means a great book, or even a book that lives up to its title, its essays include enough history for it to be better than worthless, though getting those facts requires reading a lot of tedious and terrible pontificating on the part of the self-righteous author.

This book is made up of eleven essays that together take up a bit less than 200 pages of material that is highly elusive in nature. The book begins with a discussion of a punch on a May Day picnic between two people who, in the author’s mind, represent the two strands of those who appreciate May Day, namely the eco-friendly neo-pagan Greens and the Marxist Reds. This is followed by the titular essay of the book, which discusses a bit of pagan history, the Middle Ages, Morton’s infamous Maypole in New England, and the Haymarket riots. This is followed by a discussion of May Day in light of Waco and the Rodney King riots, leading to more tedious moralizing on the part of the author. This is followed by a short May Day meditation. Another chapter discusses May Day and its relevance for British imperialism by looking at the confluence of Britain’s WWI effort and the Second Gulf War. After this there is a brief discussion of the relationship of May Day and the sort of freedom and equality sought by the Magna Carta. After this comes as look at the author’s views of celebrating May Day with “heart.” A rather critical discussion of Obama follows, after which there is a discussion of archiving May Day history. The book then ends with a discussion of the leftist history of Ysplanti as it relates to May Day as well as the typical leftist incompetence at government (which the author seems not to recognize as he bemoans its effects), a retirement essay, and then an index.

Reading this book was a particularly unpleasant experience for me, though it was expressive of the way in which many people today find themselves being self-righteous without having made any pretensions at being righteous. It is bad enough to deal with self-righteousness from those who aim at righteousness and happen to be blind of their sins of pride and arrogance, but it is absolutely insufferable to deal with self-righteousness from those who glory in their unrighteousness and somehow manage to combine the sins of the immoral with the sins of the hypocrites at the same time because in their immorality they still believe themselves to be moral guides who look down on others. This book presents itself as a moral guide to someone to follow the twin paths of nature worship and leftist revolutionary politics, viewing both as superior to any of their vastly better alternatives. If you happen to know someone who raves about this book, it is probably best to discount their opinion on politics and morality and to keep an eye on your belongings to make sure that they don’t get any ideas about theft and re-appropriation.