The Anarchist's Tool Chest: Revised Edition

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by Christopher Schwarz

Fourteen years after the release of "The Anarchist's Tool Chest," Christopher Schwarz spent almost a year revising every sentence and idea in the book. The result is a text that is even more pointed than the original. The message: Buy good tools (here's how). Build a chest to protect them. And while you're at it... quit corporate America.

“The Anarchist’s Tool Chest: Revised Edition,” paints a world where woodworking tools are at the center of an ethical life filled with creating furniture that will last for generations. It makes the case that you can build almost anything with a kit of fewer than 50 high-quality tools, and it shows you how to select real working tools, regardless of their vintage or brand name.

“The Anarchist’s Tool Chest: Revised Edition” will guide you in building a proper chest for your toolkit that follows the ancient rules that have been forgotten or ignored.

And it will make the argument that building a chest and filling it with the right tools just might be the best thing you can do to save our craft.

From the first chapter of the book:

When I am too exhausted, ill or busy to work in my shop, I will shuffle down the stairs to my 15' x 25' workshop and simply stand there for a few minutes with my hands on my tools.

To be sure, I thought I was a touch nuts because of this personality quirk. But after reading the oral histories and diaries of craftsmen from the last 300 years, I found it's actually a common trait among artisans. I am drawn, married or perhaps addicted to the things that allow me to coax wood into new shapes. At the same time, my relationship with my tools is like a tumultuous combination of an Italian family drama, a bigamist's decision about who to sleep with and a careful gardener.

Curious about what we mean by "anarchism?" Read this short FAQ.

About the Revised Edition

For the revised edition, Schwarz went through the list of tools he recommended in the original text and shortened it. And after building the chest over and over with students, Schwarz (and his shopmate Megan Fitzpatrick) came up with many ways to make construction of the chest easier – without sacrificing anything in strength or beauty. He rebuilt the chest for the revised edition using these hard-won ideas and managed to create more space for tools, with easier ways to get at them.

The physical book has also been improved. Like the original, “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest: Revised Edition” is printed entirely in the United States using domestic materials. For the revised edition, we upgraded the paper's weight and its smoothness. The result is type and photos that are crisp, with deep blacks and a full tonal range of grays.

We also redesigned the interior pages from scratch, using a larger, more readable typeface and some greatly improved line spacing. (The original edition was supposed to look like a manifesto, using free fonts plus an intentionally amateurish design scheme. It indeed looked like a manifesto – but the text was a little difficult to read for older eyes.) The revised edition uses a very readable Garamond Premier Pro 12 point type. 

Despite all the physical upgrades to the book (including some nice printed endsheets), we decided to keep the book at the old retail price of $51. 

About the Author

Christopher Schwarz is a furniture maker, writer and teacher. He is one of the founders and publisher of Lost Art Press and one of the founders of Crucible Tool.