Product Description

Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years redefines the historical memory of Emma Goldman and illuminates a forgotten yet influential facet of the history of American and European radicalism. This definitive multivolume work, which differs significantly from Goldman's autobiography, presents original texts--a significant group of which are published in or translated into English for the first time--anchored by rigorous contextual annotations. The distillation of years of scholarly research, these volumes include personal correspondence, newspaper articles, government surveillance reports from America and Europe, dramatic court transcripts, unpublished lecture notes, and an array of other rare items and documentation. Biographical, newspaper, and organizational appendixes are complemented by in-depth chronologies that underscore the complexity of Goldman's political and social milieu.

The first volume, Made for America, 1890-1901, tracks the young Emma Goldman's introduction into the anarchist movement, features her earliest known writings in the German anarchist press, and charts her gradual emergence from the radical immigrant circles of New York City's Lower East Side into a political and intellectual culture of both national and international importance. Goldman's remarkable public ascendance is framed within a volatile period of political violence: within the first few pages, Henry Clay Frick, the anti-union industrialist, is shot by Alexander Berkman, Goldman's lover; the book ends with the assassination of President William McKinley, an act in which Goldman was falsely implicated. The documents surrounding these events shed light on difficult issues--and spark an important though chilling debate about Goldman's strategy for reconciling her "beautiful vision" of anarchism and the harsh realities of her times.

The documents articulate the force of Goldman's rage, tracing the development of her political and social critique as well as her originality and her remarkable ability to synthesize and popularize cutting-edge political and cultural ideas. Goldman appears as a rising luminary in the mainstream press--a voice against hypocrisy and a lightning rod of curiosity, intrigue, and sometimes fear. The volumes include newspaper accounts of the speaking tours across America that eventually established her reputation as one of the most challenging and passionate orators of the twentieth century.

Themes that came to dominate Goldman's life--anarchism and its possibilities, free speech, education, the transformative power and social significance of literature, the position of labor within the capitalist economic system, the vital importance of women's freedom, the dynamics of personal relationships, and strategies for a social revolution--are among the many introduced in Made for America.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2151510 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 675 pages

Review
"A vast sourcebook of fascinating newspaper articles, letters, trial transcripts, and speeches... especially instructive in today's climate of constricted civil liberties."--Utne Reader -- Review

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
"Everything good and noble, grand and beautiful, wise and useful, has been done by the spirit of liberty, from the love of freedom, in spite of and in the teeth of government and authority. When man will have recovered from the effects of authority, when he will understand that freedom is the most precious thing, when he will be free to live, to work, to act, to develop, to enter into social relations with whom he is in sympathy, then warfare, conquests, robbery, theft, corruption, poverty and all the ornaments of the State, all the burden of authority will be looked upon as relics of barbarism."-Emma Goldman

Customer Reviews

"Highly recommended"
"Highly recommended" --'Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries'

"This collection is an excellent overview of Goldman's early years...recommended for larger public and all academic libraries." --'Library Journal'

"A vast sourcebook of fascinating newspaper articles, letters, trial transcripts, and speeches...especially instructive in today's climate of constricted civil liberties" --Christ Dodge, 'Utne Reader'

"This book definitely shows better than any work previously published, including Goldman's own autobiography, her splendid achievement during this early decade as an emerging anarchist." --John Patten, 'Anarchist Studies'

"The end result of the documents as presented and the scholarly apparatus is material in a highly accessible form (especially for the general reader), but which nonetheless provides leads for the scholarly researcher" --Nancie Marie Robertson, 'Documentary Editing'

"The volumes expand access to materials essential to understanding American history, especially struggles over radical politics, the position of women, free speech, violence as a means of social change, government repression, and the place of the individual in American myth and culture. The [Emma Goldman Papers Project] sheds as much light on Goldman's America as on the woman herself." --'Documentary Editing'

"The sustained introduction in each volume provides an interpretive for understanding [Goldman's] life and documents. The documents themselves allow the reader to develop his or her own analysis of Goldman." --'Documentary Editing'

"Today, those worried about governmental response to terrorism, coupled with the prevalence of anti-immigrant sentiments and laws, as well as the resistance to such efforts, can find much to mull over in these two volumes. ... The documents speak to important questions of our own times. The American reading public can be grateful to Falk and her collaborators." --'Documentary Editing'