u/Simple_Pigeon_1153

First of all, I want to be honest with you guys: I'm genuinely very new to all of this. I’ve never been involved in activism or close to anything political because the idea of taking action in real life repulsed me, so please, excuse in advance my huge ignorance and the very likely stupidity of my questions.

Okay, let's start. I'm very new to all of this; in fact, I'm still researching the libertarian movement. From what I’ve been reading around here, many people have had a similar journey to mine: you start out a bit communist, you get disillusioned by Stalin, disappointed when you learn more about Lenin, and you end up seeing the flaws in everything that has to do with the state and hierarchy... As I said, I'm new to this, I've just recently started reading about the topic. I started with David Graeber—I loved "Debt" and read some fragments of "The Dawn of Everything"—then came Bookchin, and from there, what I read most now is anything related to Abdullah Öcalan. I know they might not be strictly anarchists, but anyway, I'm generally very interested in practical implementation, Makhnovshchina, Zapatistas... I want to know what an assembly is like, how it works, failures, successes, everything.

Getting back to the main topic: I'm from a small city in Spain, and I emphasize small. There's a CNT building, but not much else when it comes to anarchism. Everything else is or communist parties that are as we call it here "casposos" or some antifascist organization.

To be honest, I don't see myself joining a union, but I want to know: besides attending the different talks and debates organized by the CNT, should I be doing anything else? If I feel a certain organization might be interesting to me even if it's socialist, like CJS (Coordinadora Juvenil Socialista), is it a good idea to approach them even if they aren't anarchist? Does anyone have a similar situation to mine?

I've been completely fed up with reading on an ebook for a while now, so I'm looking for a good history book in print. I'm from a relatively small city in Spain, and I'm very interested in Asian and African history. Lately, I've been dying to dive deep into Tibet—not for spiritual reasons, but out of pure cultural interest.

The thing is, it's a bit tough here because there is barely any historiography available in Spanish, and even less accessible in local libraries. However, I managed to find this book: "The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama".

I'm reading good reviews, but I'm highly skeptical. Mostly because I read that the Dalai Lama isn't exactly an angel, and above all, because I've heard that independent Tibet was actually a very dark, feudal, and slave-owning regime.

Is this a good introductory read, or does it stray from a serious historical and social analysis?