Nearly 650 pages of the original texts of letters, speeches, and newspaper articles by, about, and to anarchism's leading lady, all anthologized for the first time, and many never before translated into English. All painstakingly annotated, introduced, and contextualized in a truly heroic volume.
This second volume chronicles Goldman's pivotal role in the early battle for free expression. It highlights the relationship between the development of the right of free speech and turn-of-the-century anarchist ideas. The enactment of anti-anarchist laws and the organization of groups in protest occupy center stage among the primary documents. Within this frame, the volume presents Goldman's evolving attitudes towards violence in both its European and American contexts, the emergent revolution in Russia, the beginnings of the Modern School education movement in America, the social significance of European modern drama, and the right of labor to organize against unfair working conditions in the United States.
The volume features the early evolution of Goldman's magazine Mother Earth, launched in 1906, which promoted a blending of modern literary and cultural ideas into her radical and social political agenda and became a platform for the articulation of her feminist critique, an expression of her international reach, and a marker of her desire to spread anarchist ideas outside the immigrant left. A truly staggering work, and well worth the price.
