Over the course of an extraordinary revolutionary lifetime, Emma Goldman challenged a long list of towering adversaries: the police, the U.S. prison system, Anthony Comstock (champion of the anti-birth control Comstock laws), J. Edgar Hoover, and Vladimir Lenin. She was an early and outspoken critic of homophobia at a time when such a position was rare, including among anarchists, and mentored Margaret Sanger in the fight for birth control access. Her legacy has continued to inspire radical thinkers for a century. Historian Howard Zinn wrote a play about her life; artist Jenny Holzer used her writings in a searing print series. Though we tend to think of the history of radical political thought as overwhelmingly male, Goldman offers a fierce feminist intervention. This anthology organizes her most relevant writings, speeches, and interviews according to her perennial concerns, including marriage, prostitution, prisons and political violence.
This new edition includes a foreword by Vivian Gornick, an interview of Goldman by pathbreaking journalist Nelly Bly, and a biographical timeline.