Johann Most (1846?1906) was a German writer and orator. After advocating for social democracy starting in the 1860s, Most converted to anarchism by the early 1880s and emigrated to the United States in 1882. Through his paper Freiheit he advocated for armed struggle against capital and the state. After the Haymarket Affair in 1886, Most's thinking broadened as he explored the culture, labor movement, and politics of his adopted homeland and deepened his thoughts on anarchist communism and philosophy.

Tom Goyens is a Professor of History at Salisbury University in Maryland, USA. He is the author of Johann Most: Life of a Radical (2025) and Beer and Revolution (2007), both from the University of Illinois Press. He is editor of Storm in My Heart (2015) and Radical Gotham (2017). His articles on anarchist history have appeared in Social Anarchism, Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice, and The Journal for the Study of Radicalism. He is also an editorial board member of the journal Anarchist Studies.