The Detroit Printing Co-op: The Politics of the Joy of Printing by Danielle Aubert

Abstract

168 The Michigan Historical Review for this claim). Albert the car guy laments the transformation of his sporty ride into an “automotive womb” sheltering its occupants, while Albert the sharp-eyed critic also sees a more pernicious error in this triumph of automotive safety, since air bags and the like have done “nothing to protect vulnerable road users such as cyclists and pedestrians.” (174) This historically grounded dual perspective informs his skeptical take on selfdriving cars. These joyless parlors on wheels are the ultimate triumph of traffic engineering, the logic of which “obscures an ideology”: it “trades safety for mobility.” (269) In other words, designs for city streets have long assumed that the highest priority is automotive speed, benefitting only the denizens of those well-padded interiors. Cities for people, not just for cars, cannot be places where roads are reserved for the use of speeding robots. Albert proclaims the imminent end of the automotive age. As the thrill of driving no longer engages the young, and as we read about drivers who doze off while their Teslas cruise at highway speed, historians might take note. Brian Ladd University at Albany Danielle Aubert. The Detroit Printing Co-op: The Politics of the Joy of Printing. Los Angeles, CA: Inventory Press, 2019. Pp. 240. Illustrations. Paper: $29.95 Detroit has a fascinating history of radical politics regarding both the Right—as headquarters of the National Socialist Movement—and the Left—as the founding site of the United Automobile Workers union and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. In The Detroit Printing Co-op, Danielle Aubert, herself connected with local political organizing through the Detroit Democratic Socialists of America, gives fascinating insight into the latter side of this history from just after the 1967 Detroit Rebellion to 1980. With the art of printing and political perspectives expressed through literature as major themes, Aubert creates a snapshot of New Left organizing and propagandizing of the era. The book chronicles the life of a fiercely independent and nonhierarchical Detroit printing co-op created by Fredy and Lorraine Perlman. Though a prolific writer and a fascinating character throughout the book, Fredy’s own politics are not fleshed out until the second half. The labeling may be an insult to someone who refused to call himself any Book Reviews 169 “ist,” but the bulk of his writings and everything else printed at his co-op were anarchist and derisive toward state-communism. Some of their most impassioned criticism takes aim at the Eastern Bloc, where Fredy earned his PhD in law, and the book describes his transition from a LibertarianMarxist to an Anarcho-Primitivist near the end of his life. This colored the output of his co-op, and as a result one noteworthy perspective and organizing tradition of the contemporary radical Left missing from the book is that of the Marxist-Leninists. The co-op put out educational pamphlets and books on Marxist theory, radical student magazines, union newsletters, anarchist propaganda, and most famously the first English translation of Guy Debord’s 1967 Society of the Spectacle. Tirades against the university system, calls for international and interracial solidarity against imperialism and racism, and teachings on alienation and commodity fetishization characterize the prints. Readers get a glimpse at their social network as the book chronicles the co-op’s collaborations with Revolutionary Union Movements, Detroit architecture workers attempting to unionize, SDS organizers in Madison, Wisconsin, Yugoslavian scholars, and Situationist activists from the 1968 French uprisings. The real focus is on the physical publications printed at the co-op. Aubert’s voice is rather scant, consisting of a brief political summary of each print, often paired with enlightening analysis of the graphic design. Over half the book is taken up by facsimiles of images and text published at the co-op. Stamped with the co-op “union bug” consisting of the International Workers of the World logo and a call to abolish the wage system and state, these are where readers can learn the real political history and perspectives. Anarchists take pride in art and self-expression, and where the authorship shines is in demonstrating the art of printing that went into the organization. Aubert details the...