Overview

Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years reconstructs the life of Emma Goldman through significant texts and documents. These two volumes - part of a projected four-volume series - collect personal letters, lecture notes, newspaper articles, court transcripts, government surveillance reports, and numerous other documents, some of which appear here in English for the first time. Supplemented with thorough annotations, multiple appendixes, and detailed chronologies, the texts bring to life the memory of this singular, pivotal figure in American and European radical history. Volume 1: Made for America, 1890-1901 introduces readers to the young Emma Goldman as she begins her association with the international anarchist movement and especially with the German, Jewish, and Italian immigrant radicals in New York City. From early on, Goldman's movement through political and intellectual circles is marked by violence, from the attempted murder of industrialist Henry Clay Frick by Goldman's lover, Alexander Berkman, to the assassination of President William McKinley, in which Goldman was falsely implicated.The documents surrounding these events illuminate Goldman's struggle to balance anarchism's positive gains and its destructive costs. This volume introduces many of the themes that would pervade much of Goldman's later writings and speeches: the untold possibilities of anarchism; the transformative power of literature; the interplay of human relationships; and the importance of free speech, education, labor, women's freedom, and radical social reform.

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9780252075414

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Reviews

This collection is an excellent overview of Goldman's early years and is recommended for larger public and all academic libraries. Library Journal A real achievement and a major contribution to the study of the American left. [This collection] will, one hopes, inspire scholars, teachers, and undergraduate and graduate students to explore the history of that struggle between free speech and free assembly, on the one hand, and the combined forces of power, prudery, and patriotism, on the other. Francis G. Couvares, Labor History (Goldman's career) as her adoptive country's most notorious anarchist [is] richly displayed in these two volumes of documentary history . -Steve Fraser, London Review of Books, 26th Feb 09

Author Information

Emma Goldman (1869-1940) was a speaker and writer who campaigned for women’s and workers’ rights, birth control, universal education, and other progressive causes. Candace Falk is a Guggenheim Fellow and the founding director of the Emma Goldman Papers research project at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of New York Times Notable Biography of the Year Love, Anarchy, and Emma Goldman. Barry Pateman is the associate editor of the Emma Goldman Papers, curator of the Kate Sharpley Library, and editor of Chomsky on Anarchism. Jessica Moran is a former assistant editor of the Emma Goldman Papers and is an archivist and scholar of anarchist history.

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