To the Barricades: The Anarchist Life of Emma Goldman

Alix Kates Shulman

Apr 2012 · Open Road Media

About this ebook

“A respectful and relevant biography of the fiery crusader” from the feminist activist and author of Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen (The New York Times Book Review). Writer, anarchist, revolutionary, feminist—Emma Goldman was all these things and more. She was a fiery advocate, taking bold stands on a wide range of issues including women’s rights, homosexuality, capitalism, and the military draft. Her tumultuous childhood in Tsarist Russia fostered her rebelliousness and emboldened her opposition to violent authority. Upon arriving in New York in 1885, Goldman found a home in the anarchist movement in the United States. She traveled the country to deliver lectures on anarchism, and was jailed for urging unemployed workers to demand the food they needed. Goldman also aggressively supported Margaret Sanger’s effort to educate women about birth control. Goldman was deported to Russia as fears of an anarchist revolution in the US grew. But back in her homeland, she didn’t find the socialist paradise of worker equality and empowerment she had hoped would take root after the Bolshevik Revolution. Disillusioned, she left the Soviet Union and traveled the world to write and agitate on behalf of her causes. Goldman’s radical legacy endures, revived during the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970s. Her story provides inspiration for any woman who ever wanted to make a difference in the world.

About the author

Alix Kates Shulman (b. 1932) is the celebrated author of fourteen books, including the bestselling novel Memoirs of an Ex–Prom Queen (1972), which established her as a primary figure in feminism’s second wave. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Shulman studied philosophy at Columbia University and received an MA at New York University. She became a political activist, joining the Congress of Racial Equality in 1961 and the Women’s Liberation Movement in 1967. Her other novels include Burning Questions (1978), On the Stroll (1981), In Every Woman’s Life . . . (1987), and Ménage (2012). She has also written the memoirs Drinking the Rain (1995), A Good Enough Daughter (1999), and To Love What Is (2008);a biography of Emma Goldman entitled To the Barricades (1971); and A Marriage Agreement and Other Essays: Four Decades of Feminist Writing (2012). Shulman lives in Manhattan and continues to speak frequently on issues such as writing, feminism, and reproductive choice.