Emma Goldman (1869-1940), anarchist, feminist, and social reformer, continues to fascinate to this day, both because of her pioneering activism and the force of her remarkable personality. She first became interested in politics in the revolutionary circles of late-nineteenth century St. Petersburg. Then, on emigration to the United States, this daughter of a poor, Russian-Jewish family threw herself into political agitation on behalf of a host of radical causes, from free love to birth control to anarchism. At a time when women only rarely participated in public life, she was a highly visible exception, drawing crowds - and the attention of the police - wherever she went. In addition to her political activities, she played an important role in introducing the most advanced European thought and literature to an American public. Jailed for agitating against American entry into World War I, she was deported to the newly-born Soviet Union in 1919.
There, she worked on behalf of the Bolshevik government, but soon became disillusioned with the Soviet state, which she came to see as a nascent tyranny. Fleeing that country, she spent the rest of her life wandering, a permanent exile "nowhere at home." During Goldman's later life, and especially after her death, her reputation went into a temporary eclipse. As the social upheavals of the earlier part of the century faded from memory and as the anarchist movement declined, she came to seem a colorful but irrelevant figure of an increasingly distant past. With the onset of a new wave of political discontent in the 1960s, however, Goldman was once again a subject of scholarly and popular interest. Her writings were reissued; her image was often displayed on wall posters and picket signs; her name and example were frequently invoked by the activists of the period.
Indeed, for the feminists and radicals of the 1960s and 70s, Emma Goldman achieved the status of an icon, the very symbol of personal and political liberation. Marian Morton's important new biography provides a fresh perspective on Goldman's life and work, one that synthesizes much previous scholarship. In a judicious, clear-eyed narrative, Professor Morton not only places Goldman in historical context; but also explores the complex, mercurial, often contradictory personality that lay behind the public figure. The result is a balanced and insightful political biography of one of the most fascinating and influential women of the twentieth century.
