New Book: ALF – Complete Diary Of Actions
Every ALF raid, in one place: New 130 page book chronicling over 40 years of the Animal Liberation Front.
Just back from the printer: The first assembled timeline of the Animal Liberation Front’s 40+ year history – from broken windows to lab raids.
In 2009, I released the first timeline of the ALF’s (then-) 30 year history. After selling over 1,000 copies, the book went out of print in 2012.
Now, 10 years later, I gave the “A.L.F. Diary Of Actions” a thorough update and all new layout, bringing it up to date for 2022. It is now available in two formats: Free PDF download, or paperback.
Free PDF Download
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Paperback
Amazon ($6.95 + free shipping)
Bookshop.org (support local bookstores)
Internationally (UK, Spain, Canada, more)
ALF: Diary Of Actions (preview)
From the introduction:
“A.L.F.: Complete Diary of Actions is the first attempt at compiling the complete history of recorded A.L.F. actions—from lab raids to paint bombs—in one collection. This is the unwritten history of an underground movement that rises to the call of non-human animals, rescuing them through direct or indirect means under the cover of darkness. With this collection, we wish to offer historians and activists the first attempt at a comprehensive resume of the U.S.’s most prolific underground movement, and the last hope for thousands of animals each year.
The information compiled here was pooled from numerous sources. Every effort was made to verify the accuracy of the data, and ensure the thoroughness of this timeline’s scope. It can be speculated that reported actions represent but only a portion of all A.L.F. (and other) activity. This is not presented as an all-inclusive list. Instead, it attempts to collect all actions reported to the greater movement, and many which were less publicized.
In bringing this information together in one place, some points become evident. The sheer prolificness of underground activists in this 30-year old movement is immense, with over 1,500 recorded actions in 40+ years. For all this activity, fewer than 40 activists have been arrested. Of those, only a small handful have served any substantial amount of prison time. The cost/benefit calculation is clear: for the animal liberation movement, the A.L.F. represents a net gain.
The actions here are diverse, in both tactics and impact. Look closely at this timeline, and it will tell a story. Direct action trends corresponding to above-ground campaigns. Cells building their skill level, evolving their tactics, and disbanding for reasons unknown. We see expertly coordinated lab raids of the 1980s fading to the surge of small-scale property damage of the mid-1990s, the further surge of fur farm raids, the return of the lab raid, and the gradual fading of lower-impact retail-level actions into the less numerous, yet higher-impact actions in the era of this timeline’s end.
The greatest power of the Animal Liberation Front perhaps has yet to be realized. While U.S. history has not yet shown us a focused direct action campaign that has collapsed an entire industry and rid it from this earth forever, no movement should scale it’s hope to the limits of recorded history, but instead to the boundless potential of the unwritten future.
Every activist who attended an anti-fur demo this year pairing off and visiting a fur farm would guarantee there were no fur stores to protest next year. Every person who dined at a vegetarian restaurant today pairing off and visiting a slaughterhouse tonight would ensure every restaurant was vegetarian tomorrow. And every person who refused an animal tested product today striking a high-impact blow against animal experimentation tonight would guarantee a more hopeful future for all of vivisection’s victims.
This is the story of those who make animal liberation a reality.
For Liberation
Peter Young”
