Concerned Citizen: The FBI’s Anarchist Cookbook Dossier
Description from the website of publisher Tempo House:
When William Powell’s infamous publication The Anarchist Cookbook (1971) drew the attention of the FBI, agents were assigned to track which stores sold the book and to find out if William Powell was a pseudonym.
In 2010, the FBI released the bulk of its investigative file on The Anarchist Cookbook – it is these files that are reproduced within Concerned Citizen. They are published here in part as historical curiosity, and in part for their readymade graphic design/art-book qualities; the two traits are arguably inseparable.
Concerned Citizen contains a brief critical essay on the history of The Anarchist Cookbook: its disputed association with anarchist political philosophy; the ethics surrounding the publication; and its transformation into what Johann ‘Hans’ Most calls a ‘literary Satan’.
The book is typeset in Bureau Grot, Untitled Serif and Untitled Sans. The dossier itself features a treasure trove of typefaces, handwriting, rubber stamps and redactions. On the back cover, the publisher’s logo is set in FF Brokenscript.
