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Living My Life
Anarchist, journalist, drama critic, advocate of birth control and free love, Emma Goldman was the most famous—and notorious—woman in the early twentieth century. This abridged version of her two-volume autobiography takes her from her birthplace in czarist Russia to the socialist enclaves of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Against a dramatic backdrop of political argument, show trials, imprisonment, and tempestuous romances, Goldman chronicles the epoch that she helped shape: the reform movements of the Progressive Era, the early years of and later disillusionment with Lenin’s Bolshevik experiment, and more. Sounding a call still heard today, Living My Life is a riveting account of political ferment and ideological turbulence.
First time in Penguin Classics
Condensed to half the length of Goldman's original work, this edition is accessible to those interested in the activist and her extraordinary era
First time in Penguin Classics
Condensed to half the length of Goldman's original work, this edition is accessible to those interested in the activist and her extraordinary era
672 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1931
About the author
Emma Goldman
248 books916 followersEmma Goldman was a feminist anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century.
Born in Kovno in the Russian Empire (present-day Kaunas, Lithuania), Goldman emigrated to the US in 1885 and lived in New York City, where she joined the burgeoning anarchist movement.Attracted to anarchism after the Haymarket affair, Goldman became a writer and a renowned lecturer on anarchist philosophy, women's rights, and social issues, attracting crowds of thousands.
She and anarchist writer Alexander Berkman, her lover and lifelong friend, planned to assassinate Henry Clay Frick as an act of propaganda of the deed. Although Frick survived the attempt on his life, Berkman was sentenced to twenty-two years in prison. Goldman was imprisoned several times in the years that followed, for "inciting to riot" and illegally distributing information about birth control. In 1906, Goldman founded the anarchist journal Mother Earth.
In 1917, Goldman and Berkman were sentenced to two years in jail for conspiring to "induce persons not to register" for the newly instated draft. After their release from prison, they were arrested—along with hundreds of others—and deported to Russia.
Initially supportive of that country's Bolshevik revolution, Goldman quickly voiced her opposition to the Soviet use of violence and the repression of independent voices. In 1923, she wrote a book about her experiences, My Disillusionment in Russia. While living in England, Canada, and France, she wrote an autobiography called Living My Life. After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, she traveled to Spain to support the anarchist revolution there. She died in Toronto on May 14, 1940, aged 70.
During her life, Goldman was lionized as a free-thinking "rebel woman" by admirers, and derided by critics as an advocate of politically motivated murder and violent revolution.Her writing and lectures spanned a wide variety of issues, including prisons, atheism, freedom of speech, militarism, capitalism, marriage, free love, and homosexuality. Although she distanced herself from first-wave feminism and its efforts toward women's suffrage, she developed new ways of incorporating gender politics into anarchism. After decades of obscurity, Goldman's iconic status was revived in the 1970s, when feminist and anarchist scholars rekindled popular interest in her life.
Born in Kovno in the Russian Empire (present-day Kaunas, Lithuania), Goldman emigrated to the US in 1885 and lived in New York City, where she joined the burgeoning anarchist movement.Attracted to anarchism after the Haymarket affair, Goldman became a writer and a renowned lecturer on anarchist philosophy, women's rights, and social issues, attracting crowds of thousands.
She and anarchist writer Alexander Berkman, her lover and lifelong friend, planned to assassinate Henry Clay Frick as an act of propaganda of the deed. Although Frick survived the attempt on his life, Berkman was sentenced to twenty-two years in prison. Goldman was imprisoned several times in the years that followed, for "inciting to riot" and illegally distributing information about birth control. In 1906, Goldman founded the anarchist journal Mother Earth.
In 1917, Goldman and Berkman were sentenced to two years in jail for conspiring to "induce persons not to register" for the newly instated draft. After their release from prison, they were arrested—along with hundreds of others—and deported to Russia.
Initially supportive of that country's Bolshevik revolution, Goldman quickly voiced her opposition to the Soviet use of violence and the repression of independent voices. In 1923, she wrote a book about her experiences, My Disillusionment in Russia. While living in England, Canada, and France, she wrote an autobiography called Living My Life. After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, she traveled to Spain to support the anarchist revolution there. She died in Toronto on May 14, 1940, aged 70.
During her life, Goldman was lionized as a free-thinking "rebel woman" by admirers, and derided by critics as an advocate of politically motivated murder and violent revolution.Her writing and lectures spanned a wide variety of issues, including prisons, atheism, freedom of speech, militarism, capitalism, marriage, free love, and homosexuality. Although she distanced herself from first-wave feminism and its efforts toward women's suffrage, she developed new ways of incorporating gender politics into anarchism. After decades of obscurity, Goldman's iconic status was revived in the 1970s, when feminist and anarchist scholars rekindled popular interest in her life.
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July 4, 2020
Living My Life, Emma Goldman
Living My Life is the autobiography of Lithuanian-born anarchist Emma Goldman, who became internationally renowned as an activist based in the United States. It was published in two volumes in 1931.
Goldman wrote it while living in Saint-Tropez, France, following her disillusionment with the Bolshevik role in the Russian revolution. Goldman begins Living My Life with her arrival in New York City on August 8, 1889—the day she said she began her life as an anarchist. She does not express her autobiography chronologically, as she considered her first twenty years to be something of a previous life.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و پنجم ماه ژانویه سال 2017 میلادی
عنوان: آنگونه که من زیستم (خود زندگینامه)؛ نویسنده: اما گلدمن؛ مترجم: سهیلا بسکی؛ تهران، نیلوفر، 1385، در 1146ص، شابک 9644483200؛ موضوع: سرگذشتنامه اما گلدمن، آنارشیستها، ایالات متحده - سده 20م
زنیکه! اگر دستم به تو میرسید قلب کثیفت را از سینه بیرون میکشیدم و آن را غذای سگم میکردم، نمونه ای از هزاران پیامی بود، که «اِما گلدمن» در زندان دریافت میکرد؛ زنی که تا زنده بود، نیمی از مردمان آمریکا به خونش تشنه بودند، و نیمی دیگر به او عشق میورزیدند؛ زنی که همچون سایر رادیکالهای همدوره با خود، میخواست رنج را از جهان براندازد، دلی مهربان داشت، با اینحال، میتوانست برای کشتار و بمب گذاری، برنامه ریزی کند؛
نقل نمونه متن: «من تمام عمرم پای آرمانم ایستادم و هرگز به خاطر رای دادگاه تغییرش نمیدم؛ تصمیم شما هرچه که باشه، مبارزه باید ادامه پیدا کنه؛ ما چیزی نیستیم جز ذره هایی در مبارزه ی بیوقفه ی انسانی به سوی نوری که در تاریکی میتابه؛ آرمان رهایی اقتصادی، سیاسی و معنوی نوع بشر.»؛ پایان نقل از اما گلدمن
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 14/04/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
Living My Life is the autobiography of Lithuanian-born anarchist Emma Goldman, who became internationally renowned as an activist based in the United States. It was published in two volumes in 1931.
Goldman wrote it while living in Saint-Tropez, France, following her disillusionment with the Bolshevik role in the Russian revolution. Goldman begins Living My Life with her arrival in New York City on August 8, 1889—the day she said she began her life as an anarchist. She does not express her autobiography chronologically, as she considered her first twenty years to be something of a previous life.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و پنجم ماه ژانویه سال 2017 میلادی
عنوان: آنگونه که من زیستم (خود زندگینامه)؛ نویسنده: اما گلدمن؛ مترجم: سهیلا بسکی؛ تهران، نیلوفر، 1385، در 1146ص، شابک 9644483200؛ موضوع: سرگذشتنامه اما گلدمن، آنارشیستها، ایالات متحده - سده 20م
زنیکه! اگر دستم به تو میرسید قلب کثیفت را از سینه بیرون میکشیدم و آن را غذای سگم میکردم، نمونه ای از هزاران پیامی بود، که «اِما گلدمن» در زندان دریافت میکرد؛ زنی که تا زنده بود، نیمی از مردمان آمریکا به خونش تشنه بودند، و نیمی دیگر به او عشق میورزیدند؛ زنی که همچون سایر رادیکالهای همدوره با خود، میخواست رنج را از جهان براندازد، دلی مهربان داشت، با اینحال، میتوانست برای کشتار و بمب گذاری، برنامه ریزی کند؛
نقل نمونه متن: «من تمام عمرم پای آرمانم ایستادم و هرگز به خاطر رای دادگاه تغییرش نمیدم؛ تصمیم شما هرچه که باشه، مبارزه باید ادامه پیدا کنه؛ ما چیزی نیستیم جز ذره هایی در مبارزه ی بیوقفه ی انسانی به سوی نوری که در تاریکی میتابه؛ آرمان رهایی اقتصادی، سیاسی و معنوی نوع بشر.»؛ پایان نقل از اما گلدمن
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 14/04/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
May 26, 2007
If you want to read the story of a woman who knew everyone worth knowing, originated every radical idea that's ever flitted through your mind eighty years before you did, loved literature, drinking, clothes, flowers, theater, conversation and parties...well, this is the book for you.
Inspirational and fun.
Inspirational and fun.
October 23, 2018
خوندن زندگینامهها همیشه برام لذتبخش بوده همونطور که شنیدن حرفهایی که آدمها از زندگیشون برام میزنن همیشه جالبه برام، خوندن خودزندگینامهی اما گلدمن هم از این قاعده مستثنی نیست.خوندن ۱۱۴۶ صفحه میتونه برای بعضی خوانندهها خسته کننده باشه اما باید تحمل کرد و آروم آروم با کتاب پیش رفت.
فقط میخوام بگم ای کاش ای کاش ای کاش بتونم یک صدم اما گلدمن زندگی کنم.
خوندن دیدارهاش با آدمهایی که جاهای مختلف اسمشون رو شنیدیم و آدمهایی که تا حالا اسمشونم به گوشمون نخورده،خوندن دربارهی زندگی شخصیش چه در زمان کودکی چه بزرگسالی و عقایدش همه برام لذت بخش بود.
یکی از جالب توجه ترین فصل های کتاب هم فصل ۵۲ست که گلدمن به روسیه برگشته(در واقع تبعید شده از امریکا) و روایتش از روسیه در سالهای ۱۹۲۰ رو میخونیم.شنیدن تاریخ از زبان کسانی که تجربه و زندگیش کردند گرچه روایت شخصی و در بعضی موارد جانبدارانهست اما حداقل برای من لذت بخش تره نسبت به کتابهای تاریخی،و خب وقتی این روایت رو گلدمن ارائه میده فکر نمیکنم ایرادی بشه بهش وارد دونست.
گلدمن در جملات پایانی کتاب میگه که اونجور که میخواسته زندگی کرده،و واقعا چی از این مهم تره؟
فقط میخوام بگم ای کاش ای کاش ای کاش بتونم یک صدم اما گلدمن زندگی کنم.
خوندن دیدارهاش با آدمهایی که جاهای مختلف اسمشون رو شنیدیم و آدمهایی که تا حالا اسمشونم به گوشمون نخورده،خوندن دربارهی زندگی شخصیش چه در زمان کودکی چه بزرگسالی و عقایدش همه برام لذت بخش بود.
یکی از جالب توجه ترین فصل های کتاب هم فصل ۵۲ست که گلدمن به روسیه برگشته(در واقع تبعید شده از امریکا) و روایتش از روسیه در سالهای ۱۹۲۰ رو میخونیم.شنیدن تاریخ از زبان کسانی که تجربه و زندگیش کردند گرچه روایت شخصی و در بعضی موارد جانبدارانهست اما حداقل برای من لذت بخش تره نسبت به کتابهای تاریخی،و خب وقتی این روایت رو گلدمن ارائه میده فکر نمیکنم ایرادی بشه بهش وارد دونست.
گلدمن در جملات پایانی کتاب میگه که اونجور که میخواسته زندگی کرده،و واقعا چی از این مهم تره؟
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December 28, 2021Until relatively recently, I was unaware that Emma Goldman -- whom I first knew as a rabble-rouser of note from reading E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime in high school,and in college, giving a close friend a ride to get an abortion at the Emma Goldman Clinic -- and I was curious. And some time ago, I was persuaded to read this by a woman I loved who modeled herself to a large degree on Emma Goldman, who tried to live free and beautiful, and for a time I thought we could live freely and beautifully together.
That experiment failed. Emma Goldman, though, end up in a better place, having turned her back on the stultifying traditions of imperial Russia, been kicked out of the US, fled the USSR she felt no kinship with, and wound up in Saint Tropez, a happy woman despite the fact that the world she dreamed of failed to materialize, its best and bravest minds dead and in prison. Because to be a committed anarchist or even, really, a committed socialist, is to dedicate yourself to a position you firmly believe to be intellectually and ethically correct, no matter how lonely that position is, no matter how much it is disincentivized by the powers that be, no matter how much that hope for a better world is beyond hope.
And while Goldman's memoir didn't bring that hope any closer reality -- not even in that very abstract sense employed by writers like Carlos Bulosan or Angela Davis, who believed that things simply must get better. Instead, she sighs. But she is nonetheless fascinating.
That experiment failed. Emma Goldman, though, end up in a better place, having turned her back on the stultifying traditions of imperial Russia, been kicked out of the US, fled the USSR she felt no kinship with, and wound up in Saint Tropez, a happy woman despite the fact that the world she dreamed of failed to materialize, its best and bravest minds dead and in prison. Because to be a committed anarchist or even, really, a committed socialist, is to dedicate yourself to a position you firmly believe to be intellectually and ethically correct, no matter how lonely that position is, no matter how much it is disincentivized by the powers that be, no matter how much that hope for a better world is beyond hope.
And while Goldman's memoir didn't bring that hope any closer reality -- not even in that very abstract sense employed by writers like Carlos Bulosan or Angela Davis, who believed that things simply must get better. Instead, she sighs. But she is nonetheless fascinating.
August 12, 2016
«اما گلدمن» (۱۹۴۰-۱۸۶۹)زاده ی سرزمین روسیه ، از خانواده ای یهودی مذهب بود که بیشتر عمر خود را در ایالات متحده امریکا صرف مبارزات آنارشیستی و تلاش در رفع بی عدالتی ها کرد.اعدام غم انگیز کارگران شیکاگو و دنبال کردن اخبار مربوط به آن برای اِمای جوان و کم تجربه که تا پیش از این در روسیه زندگی می کرد ، جرقه ای شد تا آتش انقلاب در او شعله ور شود و با اطمینان کامل از هدفش، به سوی سرزمینی جدید و یا به عبارتی به سوی دنیایی نو برای تحقق آرمانهایش روانه شود.
به هنگام خاندن این خودزندگینامه ی بیش از هزار صفحه ای ،خاننده هر لحظه باید آماده باشد که همراه با اما گلدمن به ایالتهای مختلف امریکا سفر کرده،در سخنرانیهای پر شور او شرکت کند،شاهد بازداشتهایش باشد،با لحظه های رمانتیک ، شادیها ،دوستیها ، گرمای محبت و انسان دوستی و قدرت بی انتهای او در پایداری طی مبارزه ای چند دَه ساله به هیجان درآید و با سختی های طاقت فرسای مبارزات ،خطر کشته شدن،رنج زندان ، تبعید ، توقیف و از دست دادن دوستان ، دچار اضطراب و پریشانی شود.
بخشی از کتاب:
شبی که غرق در مطالعه بودم،از ورود چند مأمور پلیس و خبرنگار به حیرت افتادم.آنها اعلام کردند:«رئیس جمهور همین الان درگذشت.چه احساسی در این باره دارید؟آیا متأسف نیستید؟«پرسیدم:«آیا امروز در سراسر ایالات متحده فقط رئیس جمهور درگذشته است؟مطمئناً خیلی های دیگر هم در همین زمان و احتمالاً در فقر و تنگدستی،در حالی که وابستگان بیچاره ی خود را تنها گذاشته اند،مرده اند.چرا انتظار دارید که برای مرگ مکینلی بیش از دیگران متأسف باشم؟»ا
افزودم:«دلسوزی من همیشه معطوف به زندگان است.مردگان دیگر به آن نیازی ندارند.مسلماً همه ی شما به همین دلیل احساس دلسوزی شدیدی نسبت به مردگان دارید،چون می دانید هرگز از شما نمیخاهند به ادعاهایتان عمل کنید.»یک خبرنگار جوان فریاد برآورد:«لعنتی،چه مطلب عالی ای!اما فکر می کنم شما دیوانه اید!»ا
در انتها از ترجمه ی دلنشین خانم «سهیلا بسکی» هم نگذریم که در با رضایت به پایان بردن این کتاب بسیار کمک کننده بود.
به هنگام خاندن این خودزندگینامه ی بیش از هزار صفحه ای ،خاننده هر لحظه باید آماده باشد که همراه با اما گلدمن به ایالتهای مختلف امریکا سفر کرده،در سخنرانیهای پر شور او شرکت کند،شاهد بازداشتهایش باشد،با لحظه های رمانتیک ، شادیها ،دوستیها ، گرمای محبت و انسان دوستی و قدرت بی انتهای او در پایداری طی مبارزه ای چند دَه ساله به هیجان درآید و با سختی های طاقت فرسای مبارزات ،خطر کشته شدن،رنج زندان ، تبعید ، توقیف و از دست دادن دوستان ، دچار اضطراب و پریشانی شود.
بخشی از کتاب:
شبی که غرق در مطالعه بودم،از ورود چند مأمور پلیس و خبرنگار به حیرت افتادم.آنها اعلام کردند:«رئیس جمهور همین الان درگذشت.چه احساسی در این باره دارید؟آیا متأسف نیستید؟«پرسیدم:«آیا امروز در سراسر ایالات متحده فقط رئیس جمهور درگذشته است؟مطمئناً خیلی های دیگر هم در همین زمان و احتمالاً در فقر و تنگدستی،در حالی که وابستگان بیچاره ی خود را تنها گذاشته اند،مرده اند.چرا انتظار دارید که برای مرگ مکینلی بیش از دیگران متأسف باشم؟»ا
افزودم:«دلسوزی من همیشه معطوف به زندگان است.مردگان دیگر به آن نیازی ندارند.مسلماً همه ی شما به همین دلیل احساس دلسوزی شدیدی نسبت به مردگان دارید،چون می دانید هرگز از شما نمیخاهند به ادعاهایتان عمل کنید.»یک خبرنگار جوان فریاد برآورد:«لعنتی،چه مطلب عالی ای!اما فکر می کنم شما دیوانه اید!»ا
در انتها از ترجمه ی دلنشین خانم «سهیلا بسکی» هم نگذریم که در با رضایت به پایان بردن این کتاب بسیار کمک کننده بود.
June 20, 2022
Quase mil páginas, uma das maiores leituras dos últimos meses a que me propus, com proveito completo como resultado. Há uma dimensão nuclear que é o anarquismo como conceito, e como baluarte e reduto na vida de Emma Goldman. O massacre de Haymarket é o ponto de partida, o acontecimento capaz de produzir no âmago da pessoa uma completa transformação. Grande parte da sua dedicação "à causa" é realizada nos EUA, onde também foi confrontada e aprisionada, a ponto de se tornar numa espécie de inimigo público, por entre muitos (centenas) episódios. Mas o capítulo mais longo é dedicado à Rússia, a sua mãe Rússia, que viu soçobrar após a tão esperada revolução. Desiludida com a opressão do comunismo, retirou-se e viveu os últimos anos de vida em viagem pela Europa, até se estabelecer numa casinha à beira-mar em Saint Tropez, onde escreveu esta monumental biografia. Figura inspiradora.
December 25, 2016
As to killing rulers, it depends entirely on the position of the ruler. If it is the Russian tsar, I most certainly believe in dispatching him to where he belongs. If the ruler is as ineffectual as an American president, it is hardly worth the effort. There are, however, some potentates I would kill by any and all means at my disposal. They are Ignorance, Superstition, and Bigotry — the most sinister and tyrannical rulers on earth.
Confession time : I never got the chance to finish this book and I think I am around 50% through. If this book has been 300 pages, I think I would have rated it 5 stars, because it does get a little bit repetitive after a while. However, I love this woman's ideology, her anarchism, her independence, her feminism, her intelligence, her hard work, her ethics, her romantic adventures, her taste in literature and art, and I felt like if I had been living in Russia during her time, I would have been thrilled to have her as a friend. She is quite badass, and here are some of my favorite true stories from her biographies:
Anecdote #1 : She read banned books as a teenager, enjoyed the political nihilist movement and resented the political oppression of the Tsar. She adored Vera from Chernyshevsky's What is to Be Done? and she was sympathetic with the student's revolution against Russian monarchy.
Anecdote #2 : She was kicked out of her house at the age of 17 by her oppressive father, who don't believe that women should be educated. Enraged, and armed with only a sewing kit, she left home and find a job to survive on her own.
Anecdote #3 : She is a champion of the working class and women's movement. Even poor, she did not fail to educate herself by reading various works. I particularly enjoy to see brief mentions of James Joyce, Friedrich Nietzsche, and she even practiced medicine in Austria and studied as a nurse during her worst time in Blackwell's prison. She also conversed and knew many prominent anarchists, including Johann Most, Alexander Berkman, Voltairine de Cleyre, Max Baginski, Lillian Harman, Eugene V. Debs, and many more. She was close to even meet Oscar Wilde once. I swear, it seems she know almost every anarchists in New York.
Anecdote #4 : She participated in a plot to smuggle an anarchist out of prison cell in New York and her friends tried to dig a tunnel lead to the prison building. Another woman, who is her friend and an anarchist as well, played piano day and night to mask out the noise of the digging.
Anecdote #5: : She had gone to Russia, saw the Communists movement, first welcoming the liberation from the inequality of the capitalists, but was wise enough to recognize the downfall of the Communist repression in Russia and called out their horrid dictatorship.
In conclusion, Emma Goldman is badass. She got caught by police multiple time for expressing herself as an anarchist but that never stopped her from going to conventions all over American, even went to England, was an advocate of birth control (frown upon at the time), a prominent atheist, anti-war even before it was cool to be anti-war, and a supporter of free love. She is way ahead of her time, and I think it's proper to laud her for the credits she and Debs contributed to the socialist movement that allow the benefits Americans have today such as 8 hour work day and better working conditions, though they are hated during their time for rallying against the capitalists.
Confession time : I never got the chance to finish this book and I think I am around 50% through. If this book has been 300 pages, I think I would have rated it 5 stars, because it does get a little bit repetitive after a while. However, I love this woman's ideology, her anarchism, her independence, her feminism, her intelligence, her hard work, her ethics, her romantic adventures, her taste in literature and art, and I felt like if I had been living in Russia during her time, I would have been thrilled to have her as a friend. She is quite badass, and here are some of my favorite true stories from her biographies:
Anecdote #1 : She read banned books as a teenager, enjoyed the political nihilist movement and resented the political oppression of the Tsar. She adored Vera from Chernyshevsky's What is to Be Done? and she was sympathetic with the student's revolution against Russian monarchy.
Anecdote #2 : She was kicked out of her house at the age of 17 by her oppressive father, who don't believe that women should be educated. Enraged, and armed with only a sewing kit, she left home and find a job to survive on her own.
Anecdote #3 : She is a champion of the working class and women's movement. Even poor, she did not fail to educate herself by reading various works. I particularly enjoy to see brief mentions of James Joyce, Friedrich Nietzsche, and she even practiced medicine in Austria and studied as a nurse during her worst time in Blackwell's prison. She also conversed and knew many prominent anarchists, including Johann Most, Alexander Berkman, Voltairine de Cleyre, Max Baginski, Lillian Harman, Eugene V. Debs, and many more. She was close to even meet Oscar Wilde once. I swear, it seems she know almost every anarchists in New York.
Anecdote #4 : She participated in a plot to smuggle an anarchist out of prison cell in New York and her friends tried to dig a tunnel lead to the prison building. Another woman, who is her friend and an anarchist as well, played piano day and night to mask out the noise of the digging.
Anecdote #5: : She had gone to Russia, saw the Communists movement, first welcoming the liberation from the inequality of the capitalists, but was wise enough to recognize the downfall of the Communist repression in Russia and called out their horrid dictatorship.
In conclusion, Emma Goldman is badass. She got caught by police multiple time for expressing herself as an anarchist but that never stopped her from going to conventions all over American, even went to England, was an advocate of birth control (frown upon at the time), a prominent atheist, anti-war even before it was cool to be anti-war, and a supporter of free love. She is way ahead of her time, and I think it's proper to laud her for the credits she and Debs contributed to the socialist movement that allow the benefits Americans have today such as 8 hour work day and better working conditions, though they are hated during their time for rallying against the capitalists.
October 14, 2017
یکی از ستاره ها برای ترجمه خوب اثر هست و فقط
یک فهرست نمایه برای اسامی بسیار کتاب نیاز دارد
شخصیتهای بسیار و گاه معروفی در ماجرا حضور دارند
شاید اگر مترجم به اندازه یک خط در پاورقی به خود زحمت توضیح و معرفی آنها را میداد کتاب بهتری میشد
.
.
.
خواندن این کتاب تجربه بی نظیری بود مثل اینکه گذشته
کشورهایی را بدانی که امروز میبینیشان و همینطور میشود این ممالک پیشرفته را با هم مقایسه کرد که چه پیش زمینه ای در آزادی و دفاع از آزادی دارند روایت خوب و پیوسته بود و پرشهای زمانی گیجت نمیکرد گلدمن از نقد خود و همراهانش ابایی ندارد حتی به نقد شور انقلابیش پس از اکتبر 1917مینشیند برای کسانی خواندن کتاب را توصیه میکنم که میخواهند کمی بیشتر درباره سرنوشت عدالتخواهی و سرچشمه دولتهای رفاه بدانند برای کسانی که فکر میکنند چرا آلمان و انگلستان و آمریکا و مخصوصن کانادا اینقدر با یکدیگر در پذیرش انسانهای آواره تفاوت دارند آنهایی که فرمولهای سردستی و تحلیلهای آبکی رسانه ای برایشان کافی نیست
زندگینامه اما گلدمن را بخوانید اگر درباره انقلاب بلشویکی روسیه کنجکاو هستید اگر هنوز درباره لنین فکرهای خوب دارید از زبان یک آنارشیست و طرفدار دو آتشه انقلاب بخوانید که چه بر سر توده های پرولتاریا در شوروی آمد آنها که میخواستند دیکتاتوری برپا کنند و رسمن و واضحن دمکراسی را یک ژست سرمایه داری
میدانستند جالب است که همین ژست بورژواها بهترین پناهگاه رادیکالها شد و آن بهشت کمونیستی مخوفترین زندانشان
یک فهرست نمایه برای اسامی بسیار کتاب نیاز دارد
شخصیتهای بسیار و گاه معروفی در ماجرا حضور دارند
شاید اگر مترجم به اندازه یک خط در پاورقی به خود زحمت توضیح و معرفی آنها را میداد کتاب بهتری میشد
.
.
.
خواندن این کتاب تجربه بی نظیری بود مثل اینکه گذشته
کشورهایی را بدانی که امروز میبینیشان و همینطور میشود این ممالک پیشرفته را با هم مقایسه کرد که چه پیش زمینه ای در آزادی و دفاع از آزادی دارند روایت خوب و پیوسته بود و پرشهای زمانی گیجت نمیکرد گلدمن از نقد خود و همراهانش ابایی ندارد حتی به نقد شور انقلابیش پس از اکتبر 1917مینشیند برای کسانی خواندن کتاب را توصیه میکنم که میخواهند کمی بیشتر درباره سرنوشت عدالتخواهی و سرچشمه دولتهای رفاه بدانند برای کسانی که فکر میکنند چرا آلمان و انگلستان و آمریکا و مخصوصن کانادا اینقدر با یکدیگر در پذیرش انسانهای آواره تفاوت دارند آنهایی که فرمولهای سردستی و تحلیلهای آبکی رسانه ای برایشان کافی نیست
زندگینامه اما گلدمن را بخوانید اگر درباره انقلاب بلشویکی روسیه کنجکاو هستید اگر هنوز درباره لنین فکرهای خوب دارید از زبان یک آنارشیست و طرفدار دو آتشه انقلاب بخوانید که چه بر سر توده های پرولتاریا در شوروی آمد آنها که میخواستند دیکتاتوری برپا کنند و رسمن و واضحن دمکراسی را یک ژست سرمایه داری
میدانستند جالب است که همین ژست بورژواها بهترین پناهگاه رادیکالها شد و آن بهشت کمونیستی مخوفترین زندانشان
July 8, 2020
اِما گلدمن، آنارشیستی بود که نیمی از مردم آمریکا به خونش تشنه بودن و نیمی دیگر به او عشق میورزیدن.
گلدمن اولین کسی است که مسئله تبعیضهای جنسی را در سیاست مطرح کرد. او به دفاع از حقوق زنان ازجمله حق سقط جنین و همچنین دستمزد برابر پرداخت و در این مبارزه سالها به زندان رفت.
گلدمن اعتقاد دارد که زنان خود میتوانند خود را از قید و بندهای جامعه آزاد کنند؛ اگر خود را به عنوان یک شخصیت قبول کنند نه یک کالای جنسی؛ تا زمانی که خود نخواهند بچه به دنیا نیاورند؛ اگر این حق را به کسی ندهند که صاحب بدن آنها باشد؛ اگر حاضر نباشند که خدمتکار خدا باقی بمانند.
دو شخصیت متناقص گلدمن برام جالب بود .او فردی بود با روح بزرگ و آزادیخواه که دنیایی زیبا و خالی از خشونت برای همه میخواست و از طرفی برای رسیدن به اهدافش براحتی بمبگذاری میگرد و حتا یکبار خواست برای تامین پول اسلحه تنفروشی کند که الکساندر بِرک او را منصرف کرد. در هر صورت و جدای بررسی جزبهجز عقایدش، خود شخصیت مستقل گلدمن برای من ستودنی هست.
واینکه یکم کتاب طولانی بود و خیلی طول کشید، اما میتونستی رهاش کنی . و ترجمه خوبی هم داشت .
گلدمن اولین کسی است که مسئله تبعیضهای جنسی را در سیاست مطرح کرد. او به دفاع از حقوق زنان ازجمله حق سقط جنین و همچنین دستمزد برابر پرداخت و در این مبارزه سالها به زندان رفت.
گلدمن اعتقاد دارد که زنان خود میتوانند خود را از قید و بندهای جامعه آزاد کنند؛ اگر خود را به عنوان یک شخصیت قبول کنند نه یک کالای جنسی؛ تا زمانی که خود نخواهند بچه به دنیا نیاورند؛ اگر این حق را به کسی ندهند که صاحب بدن آنها باشد؛ اگر حاضر نباشند که خدمتکار خدا باقی بمانند.
دو شخصیت متناقص گلدمن برام جالب بود .او فردی بود با روح بزرگ و آزادیخواه که دنیایی زیبا و خالی از خشونت برای همه میخواست و از طرفی برای رسیدن به اهدافش براحتی بمبگذاری میگرد و حتا یکبار خواست برای تامین پول اسلحه تنفروشی کند که الکساندر بِرک او را منصرف کرد. در هر صورت و جدای بررسی جزبهجز عقایدش، خود شخصیت مستقل گلدمن برای من ستودنی هست.
واینکه یکم کتاب طولانی بود و خیلی طول کشید، اما میتونستی رهاش کنی . و ترجمه خوبی هم داشت .
November 10, 2009
This is a very intriguing, exhaustive autobiography that puts the lie to many of the flippant treatments you read/hear of Emma Goldman elsewhere. She was not some unbalanced romantic trying to compensate for a bad childhood or an inhumane psychotic, but instead a reflective, caring, passionate person who stood up for issues and people that/who were extremely unpopular in her day (and some of them still are). Her ideas were radical and her critiques of capitalist society salient.
Still, it is easy to get lost in this book. There's an endless array of characters, developments, and locations, all of which keep doubling back and changing as time passes. Further, I found myself wishing to hear more of her voice on the various issues, not just a recounting of events and personalities. For that, I've turned to a book of her essays.
In short, this book is a long road to a better understanding of an absolutely vital person in the history of social justice and change.
Still, it is easy to get lost in this book. There's an endless array of characters, developments, and locations, all of which keep doubling back and changing as time passes. Further, I found myself wishing to hear more of her voice on the various issues, not just a recounting of events and personalities. For that, I've turned to a book of her essays.
In short, this book is a long road to a better understanding of an absolutely vital person in the history of social justice and change.
December 21, 2017
One of the greatest autobiographies I've ever read. Emma Goldman had a commitment and a fire about her politics that I've never seen before. She was under threat of illegal imprisonment for most of her life and yet somehow still found her way out of both the United States and the Soviet Union a free woman.
August 27, 2009
Yep, five stars like I thought. I may not have enjoyed this memoir for lyrical qualities and literary conventions. But, feck lyrics and conventions. Through her memoir, Goldman subtly reminds her reader to keep things in a perspective of sorts (a couple conceptual steps back, if you will). What's more important? Literary conventions or humanitarian ideals? Money and power or love and dignity? I've been moved by many a memoir, but Goldman's holds a special place (right next to Jensen's A Language Older than Words) in my heart for a handful of reasons (among others that I'm sure will continue to come to me as I grow older):
1. I learned more about myself by reading this book than I could have done in months of silent retreats and isolated soul searching.
2. Goldman gave me the confidence to believe in and live my ideals, even when facing what might seem like an insurmountable challenge.
3. She gives anarchism a good name--the kind it deserves.
1. I learned more about myself by reading this book than I could have done in months of silent retreats and isolated soul searching.
2. Goldman gave me the confidence to believe in and live my ideals, even when facing what might seem like an insurmountable challenge.
3. She gives anarchism a good name--the kind it deserves.
December 3, 2008
I don't care much for biographies and autobiographies as a rule, but what a life this woman had!
October 13, 2013
L'autobiografia di "Red Emma", una donna forte e determinata. Nata in Lituania a 15 anni emigra negli USA dove, di fronte alla violenza della repressione antioperaia, diventa anarchica e femminista. Quando scoppia la rivoluzione torna in Russia, dove in seguito lotta contro l'affermarsi dello stalinismo e poi ritorna in America dove continua a sostenere i suoi ideali e le sue convinzioni. Una vita piena e affascinante.
September 21, 2020
La note ne concerne pas la vie d'Emma Goldman mais bel et bien sa plume et ce qu'elle m'inspire: une voix familière malgré toutes les années qui nous séparent, un langage accessible et clair, une voix très proche. J'ai aimé lire les éveils, réflexions et emportements de cette personne très entière, très engagée et qui ne fait aucun mystère de ses états de conscience face à la complexité du monde, et de la place de ses idéaux dans celui-ci.
January 24, 2021
«Красная Эмма» была невероятно крутой политикессой, пользовалась невероятным вниманием мужчин и осмысливала происходящее через свою оптику, уникальную для женщины конца 19-го века. В первом томе — начало ее деятельности, становление Гольдман как анархистки и феминистки. Женщина, которая выступала с телег и с бочек, которая владела несколькими языками, умела признавать свою неправоту, но что самое потрясающее, она оставалась потрясающе человечной. Я в восхищении.
July 21, 2007
There’s a horrible tendency to believe American rebellion started in the late 40’s/early 50’s with the Beats, psychic reaction to the horrors of the A bomb, the flowering of a socio-economic class called “teenager” and it’s beloved rock and roll. People wrote poems at Walden pond, hobos hopped freight trains and there has always been a party in Chinatown, but somehow it doesn’t get credit for being as sexy as Elvis to modern minds. Obviously American rebellion goes back much further than this, and if we are less in touch with those angry times that came before, our horrid attention spans and lack of historical presence must be blamed. Emma Goldman lived over a span that could be described as the golden age of American (and European) anarchism, and had to have been, as she was very much at the center of that times creation. A young immigrant woman, sickened and inspired by the hangings that followed the Haymarket Riots of 1886, Goldman devoted her life to philisophical Anarchism: a challenge to the institutions which mankind allows to limit it’s very humianity, be they “church”, “law”, “work”, or “love”. Her autobiography is a document to what the immigrant experience was like, what working conditions were at the turn of the century, the role of women in our culture then; and is filled with examples of what “control” will fear and how it will react. Though she never fired a bullet or threw a bomb, she was harassed throughout her carear by authorities and the press. After president McKinley was assasinated by an “Anarchist”, ludicrous laws swept the nation forbiding legal assembly and attempted to suppress their rights of suspect non-WASP indiviuals to express their views. Sound familiar? Emma was considered extemely dangerous, and she was, in the sense that she would not stray from her principles, though there were times when pragmatism overrode dogma. And the horrific questions she wanted answered: can’t we be more “free” than this? can’t we be more human? This first volume follows her through struggles as a seamstress and a nurse, orator and independant publisher, convict, lover of the unloved. It traces her relationships with other Anarchist of the era, both well known and otherwise. It follows her on speaking tours through a younger America and Europe. If it is at times a little tedious in it’s self-examination and passion, this can only be attributed to a quest for absolute honesty. It is long but thorough, with great titles at the top of every page like “I remarry Kershner and leave him again” or “I shock the pilgrim fathers”. It is an inspiring and fascinating read that requires a commitment that will be rewarded. People fought long and hard for an eight hour work day in this country, the idea of which somehow began to vanish in the eighties. There was a time when technology granted a certain aninimity to individuals, even though every effort was being made to suppress and find them. There was a time when “freedom” meant more than a series of economic choices, and humanity was not so tied to income. This is a new century, and a new struggle. We can take clues from the vision of those who came before.
August 29, 2007
Ms. Goldman's role in the Kronstadt Rebellion of 1921 is the best reason I can find to recommend this book, and I wish she would have spent more time talking about it and why she supported the rebellion, rather than presuming her readership understood the story in advance.
Other than providing a rare firsthand account of said rebellion, much less from a source unsympathetic to both the Soviet state and the west, I am hesitant to recommend the book.
Goldman was a part of the conspiracy to murder Henry Clay Frick, and played a part in virtually every American leftist movement during her life.
Female suffrage (only arguably "leftist") is the only exception I can think of, and this abstention was willful.
In spite of this, I walked away feeling as though she hadn't presented what she felt was right or wrong (maybe this is an anarchist thing?) in any sort of systematic way. It's a fascinating life story, but I read her life story hoping to develop a greater understanding of 20th century history, or at least how she understood human relationships in a systematic sense. What I got sounded like the gossipy version of the "Food, Not Bombs" meeting minutes. Probably interesting for a lot of people, not my bag.
I was put off by her breathy style, and felt this already-condensed book could have been about 100 pages shorter. Most of that would be removing her periodic 3 lines of expressing outrage or orgiastic joy.
If you are less cynical than I you may appreciate this book more.
I don't like memoirs, so take all this with a grain of salt.
Other than providing a rare firsthand account of said rebellion, much less from a source unsympathetic to both the Soviet state and the west, I am hesitant to recommend the book.
Goldman was a part of the conspiracy to murder Henry Clay Frick, and played a part in virtually every American leftist movement during her life.
Female suffrage (only arguably "leftist") is the only exception I can think of, and this abstention was willful.
In spite of this, I walked away feeling as though she hadn't presented what she felt was right or wrong (maybe this is an anarchist thing?) in any sort of systematic way. It's a fascinating life story, but I read her life story hoping to develop a greater understanding of 20th century history, or at least how she understood human relationships in a systematic sense. What I got sounded like the gossipy version of the "Food, Not Bombs" meeting minutes. Probably interesting for a lot of people, not my bag.
I was put off by her breathy style, and felt this already-condensed book could have been about 100 pages shorter. Most of that would be removing her periodic 3 lines of expressing outrage or orgiastic joy.
If you are less cynical than I you may appreciate this book more.
I don't like memoirs, so take all this with a grain of salt.
July 11, 2023
Emma Goldman’s Living My Life is my favourite book. She’s an awesome companion, with a wonderful turn of phrase and incredible clarity of personal and political thought.
I’ve read the unabridged ebook twice, and hadn’t realised this Penguin version was so drastically abridged when I marked it as ‘read’ on Goodreads. Because I love this book so much, I bought it. $50NZD and 8 weeks later it arrived. It took so long arriving that I thought it had been stolen from our letterbox, and even made peace with that (getting grumpy at property being stolen seemed politically inconsistent).
Honestly, it might’ve been better if this version of Living My Life had been stolen, the disappointment has been so immense.
I went to highlight my favourite quotes in it — yes, I think Emma would be fine with me scribbling 280+ notes in her book — and found that 3/4’s of my favourite quotes and anecdotes don’t seem to feature in this version. Her reflections on her relationships with her sisters, her mother, the names of the local areas she grew up in, and some of my favourite ‘why are men so needy’ quotes are just … gone! Even names of other revolutionary women are scrubbed, presumably because they’re not viewed as relevant now.
I thoroughly recommend reading Living My Life, but you need to read the unabridged version if you want to get a full sense of Emma’s character, decision making processes, and life.
💔
I’ve read the unabridged ebook twice, and hadn’t realised this Penguin version was so drastically abridged when I marked it as ‘read’ on Goodreads. Because I love this book so much, I bought it. $50NZD and 8 weeks later it arrived. It took so long arriving that I thought it had been stolen from our letterbox, and even made peace with that (getting grumpy at property being stolen seemed politically inconsistent).
Honestly, it might’ve been better if this version of Living My Life had been stolen, the disappointment has been so immense.
I went to highlight my favourite quotes in it — yes, I think Emma would be fine with me scribbling 280+ notes in her book — and found that 3/4’s of my favourite quotes and anecdotes don’t seem to feature in this version. Her reflections on her relationships with her sisters, her mother, the names of the local areas she grew up in, and some of my favourite ‘why are men so needy’ quotes are just … gone! Even names of other revolutionary women are scrubbed, presumably because they’re not viewed as relevant now.
I thoroughly recommend reading Living My Life, but you need to read the unabridged version if you want to get a full sense of Emma’s character, decision making processes, and life.
💔
March 20, 2017
I read this when I was transitioning from far left activism to Torah Judaism, and this was the perfect book for it. Emma Goldman was as far left as they come – an anarchist at the dawn of the 20th century – but she was Jewish, and I agree with her grandmother, who said to the warden while bringing her Passover food to eat in prison, “My Chavaleh does more for the poor than the traditional girls.”
You can’t help admiring Emma Goldman after reading her autobiography, even if you don’t agree with her. She’s the quintessential example of an idealistic Jew lured into the Utopian “messianism” of the left.
For me, the main lesson was in the title, “Living My Life.” This two-volume autobiography gives a complete picture of Emma Goldman’s inner feelings and outward actions from her youth till her old age. She never wavered from the cause, and she asserted early on that part of it meant enjoying life, too. When I was a leftist, I hung with a bunch of drifters who talked about “creating a reality” for themselves. Nobody “lived life” with any kind of direction. And so I learned to think about my life from a new perspective. Though I am living a life drastically different than Emma Goldman’s, I’m very glad she gave over the teachings of her life in this intimate autobiography.
You can’t help admiring Emma Goldman after reading her autobiography, even if you don’t agree with her. She’s the quintessential example of an idealistic Jew lured into the Utopian “messianism” of the left.
For me, the main lesson was in the title, “Living My Life.” This two-volume autobiography gives a complete picture of Emma Goldman’s inner feelings and outward actions from her youth till her old age. She never wavered from the cause, and she asserted early on that part of it meant enjoying life, too. When I was a leftist, I hung with a bunch of drifters who talked about “creating a reality” for themselves. Nobody “lived life” with any kind of direction. And so I learned to think about my life from a new perspective. Though I am living a life drastically different than Emma Goldman’s, I’m very glad she gave over the teachings of her life in this intimate autobiography.
August 3, 2021
Red Emma was a far more fiery figure than the demure thinker Warren Beatty portrayed her in REDS and deserves to be read in her own words. She wanted to revolutionize everything! An excerpt from LIVING MY LIFE. Emma confronts a heckler who accuses her of advocating free love "which will only lead to prostitution". Emma: "Sir, if every man in the world looked like you all the brothels would quickly shut down." Her husband and fellow Anarchist was an interesting figure in his own nright, and gets exactly one sentence in this huge autobiography.
July 18, 2018
Goldman's autobiography is full of history, romance, horror, and joy. She literally had me laughing out loud. She had a great sense of humor! I definitely recommend this book to everyone- especially all those who are interested in Anarchism, feminism, and history.
September 7, 2008
The best way to learn history is from the people who lived it and this autobiagraphy is the best one I've read.
March 29, 2021
Un des meilleurs livre que j’ai lu de ma vie. Semblable à l’autobiographie de Nelson Mandela, que j’avais lu il y a quelques années ,au niveau du degré d’inspiration d’après lecture. Emma Goldman nous ouvrent la grande porte de sa vie à travers ses rencontres, ses amies , ses émotions et surtout ses état d’âme et ses expériences révolutionnaire anarchiste. Précurseure de la justice sociale en Amérique déjà au début du 20 ieme siècle elle luttait pour : l’anarchisme, le féminisme , l’amour libre , l’athéisme , le droit des homosexuels, etc. Les derniers chapitres sur sa vie en Russie en pleine révolution bolchevique et la dérive authoritaire de la dictature bureaucratique léniniste est magistral. Top 5 à vie pour sur !!
April 9, 2017
This book not only tells the life story of an incredible human and woman, but also gives fascinating first-hand accounts of several historical events, including the free speech and conscription fights in the US and the first few years of the USSR.
June 20, 2020
No longer using this website, but I'm leaving up old reviews. Fuck Jeff Bezos. Find me on LibraryThing: https://www.librarything.com/profile/...
Emma Goldman was inspiring and almost superhuman. Her life contained an immeasurable amount of struggle for the liberation of humanity from capitalism and the state.
The metastory of Emma Goldman is quite sad. Having lived a large portion of her life in the United States, she adopted it as a homeland, and was promptly deported. Because Russia was in the midst of revolution, she therefore considered that her homeland. But conditions became so malformed there that she was forced to sneak out. And she went from country to country, where no one would take her. Emma Goldman couldn't ever just go home.
But she never stopped struggling. When she was arrested, she organized inside US prisons for better working conditions for the prisoners. When Russia was in revolution, she tirelessly advocated for it. When she was deported, she radicalized the boat's crew, convincing them to go AWOL and join Russia in its revolution. When the revolution turned sour and Lenin began to put former capitalists in charge again, she was there, too, struggling to defend the Kronstadt sailors, and then going across the world to condemn the Bolshevik betrayal.
Something that I had never known about Emma Goldman was her infatuation with art, specifically theater. As an orator, she spent the majority of her time speaking about modern drama and social thought in theater. She was a public intellectual as well as a radical, and a self-taught cultural critic.
The unabridged version of this book is a thousand pages long, in two volumes: one roughly covering her experiences organizing in the United States, as she moves in the anarchist movement from margin to center, and then, in the second volume, her deportation to Russia, her disillusionment there, and her wandering around the globe. If I had known better I would have read the abridged version. At first, I thought it was an outrage to abridge such an incredibly important person's life. But there were plenty of pages that slowed the narrative arc, and therefore made the book more difficult to read, and explains why it took me almost six months to finish it.
Goldman defended Leon Czolgocz, and her lifelong love Sasha Berkman's attempts on the lives of both president McKinley and the capitalist Henry Clay Frick in an intriguing way. The way she described these acts of violence (terror, even) was not that the perpetraitors were callous to human suffering and that enabled them to commit the acts. In fact, quite the contrary. They were so sensitive to the suffering of people that they couldn't stand by and let these individuals perpetuate that suffering. They took such drastic action on behalf of those that suffered because they were so hypersensitive that they couldn't bring themselves to live with the suffering of others. She refused to condemn the men whose propaganda by the deed was condemned by nearly the entire anarchist movement of the day, because of the state repression that followed the actions. She, like Malcom X, though the focus should be on the social conditions that led to these reactions.
I was disappointed that the book had no ending. Until the very last page, Goldman rattled off the themes and locations of lectures, so there was no closure. Part of the problem was that there wasn't closure in Emma Goldman's life at that point, given that she would still live to see the Spanish Revolution/Civil War and much of World War II before dying. An afterward from a friend or admirer would have closed the book nicely, though perhaps that now I think of Emma as still alive and working for anarchist revolution, and perhaps thats the way I should be thinking about her.
A passionate lover, a revolutionary, a woman without a country. Emma Goldman was an amazing woman.
The edition I have of this book is beautiful, and I would be willing to let anyone who wants to borrow it. The books is cloth-bound with embossed gold foil titles. Printed on heavy weighted paper, the type looks hand placed. There are pictures of characters about every 100 pages, an illustration table of contents, and an index in the back. Every page has a sentence summary of the page's contents, something I've never seen before.
Emma Goldman was inspiring and almost superhuman. Her life contained an immeasurable amount of struggle for the liberation of humanity from capitalism and the state.
The metastory of Emma Goldman is quite sad. Having lived a large portion of her life in the United States, she adopted it as a homeland, and was promptly deported. Because Russia was in the midst of revolution, she therefore considered that her homeland. But conditions became so malformed there that she was forced to sneak out. And she went from country to country, where no one would take her. Emma Goldman couldn't ever just go home.
But she never stopped struggling. When she was arrested, she organized inside US prisons for better working conditions for the prisoners. When Russia was in revolution, she tirelessly advocated for it. When she was deported, she radicalized the boat's crew, convincing them to go AWOL and join Russia in its revolution. When the revolution turned sour and Lenin began to put former capitalists in charge again, she was there, too, struggling to defend the Kronstadt sailors, and then going across the world to condemn the Bolshevik betrayal.
Something that I had never known about Emma Goldman was her infatuation with art, specifically theater. As an orator, she spent the majority of her time speaking about modern drama and social thought in theater. She was a public intellectual as well as a radical, and a self-taught cultural critic.
The unabridged version of this book is a thousand pages long, in two volumes: one roughly covering her experiences organizing in the United States, as she moves in the anarchist movement from margin to center, and then, in the second volume, her deportation to Russia, her disillusionment there, and her wandering around the globe. If I had known better I would have read the abridged version. At first, I thought it was an outrage to abridge such an incredibly important person's life. But there were plenty of pages that slowed the narrative arc, and therefore made the book more difficult to read, and explains why it took me almost six months to finish it.
Goldman defended Leon Czolgocz, and her lifelong love Sasha Berkman's attempts on the lives of both president McKinley and the capitalist Henry Clay Frick in an intriguing way. The way she described these acts of violence (terror, even) was not that the perpetraitors were callous to human suffering and that enabled them to commit the acts. In fact, quite the contrary. They were so sensitive to the suffering of people that they couldn't stand by and let these individuals perpetuate that suffering. They took such drastic action on behalf of those that suffered because they were so hypersensitive that they couldn't bring themselves to live with the suffering of others. She refused to condemn the men whose propaganda by the deed was condemned by nearly the entire anarchist movement of the day, because of the state repression that followed the actions. She, like Malcom X, though the focus should be on the social conditions that led to these reactions.
I was disappointed that the book had no ending. Until the very last page, Goldman rattled off the themes and locations of lectures, so there was no closure. Part of the problem was that there wasn't closure in Emma Goldman's life at that point, given that she would still live to see the Spanish Revolution/Civil War and much of World War II before dying. An afterward from a friend or admirer would have closed the book nicely, though perhaps that now I think of Emma as still alive and working for anarchist revolution, and perhaps thats the way I should be thinking about her.
A passionate lover, a revolutionary, a woman without a country. Emma Goldman was an amazing woman.
The edition I have of this book is beautiful, and I would be willing to let anyone who wants to borrow it. The books is cloth-bound with embossed gold foil titles. Printed on heavy weighted paper, the type looks hand placed. There are pictures of characters about every 100 pages, an illustration table of contents, and an index in the back. Every page has a sentence summary of the page's contents, something I've never seen before.
April 25, 2016
A month and a half after starting this but it's finished (and I only read the abridged edition). Goldman is a phenomenal writer - easy to digest, simple and direct but soulful with her spirit never broken. Arrest, prison, Soviet Russia - it only fuels her desire for the true revolution.
She uses a phrase frequently to describe anarchy. She calls it "the beautiful ideal," something I think is accurate. Anarchy as a philosophy is an ideal, and unlike a lot of people I think idealism is a good thing. But it's also an impossibility, which whether Goldman recognizes or not, she reveals clearly through her life story.
Human nature, as it currently exists, is not capable of civilized anarchism. Goldman never lost faith after the October uprising in Russia and accused Lenin and the Bolsheviks of corrupting the revolution. But there will always be a Lenin (and a subsequent Stalin) who seizes power, who tells the people he will lead them and rebuild, and who fails to establish anything akin to the freedom promised.
Revolutions are doomed to infighting and to suppression. They are far too vulnerable to dictators, to the greedy and power hungry. Radicals, as we are witnessing even in social media groups today, begin to demand ideological purity. They get bungled down in theory and perfection and it becomes a race to who can reach the tip of the wing first before the entire movement collapses in on itself. You only need to look at the reaction of anarchists to Goldman's denunciation of the Bolsheviks to see how people will only hear what they want to hear, even the so-called enlightened revolutionaries.
Through reading Goldman we learn that in her heart she is right, but in practice we will always be chasing "the beautiful ideal."
She uses a phrase frequently to describe anarchy. She calls it "the beautiful ideal," something I think is accurate. Anarchy as a philosophy is an ideal, and unlike a lot of people I think idealism is a good thing. But it's also an impossibility, which whether Goldman recognizes or not, she reveals clearly through her life story.
Human nature, as it currently exists, is not capable of civilized anarchism. Goldman never lost faith after the October uprising in Russia and accused Lenin and the Bolsheviks of corrupting the revolution. But there will always be a Lenin (and a subsequent Stalin) who seizes power, who tells the people he will lead them and rebuild, and who fails to establish anything akin to the freedom promised.
Revolutions are doomed to infighting and to suppression. They are far too vulnerable to dictators, to the greedy and power hungry. Radicals, as we are witnessing even in social media groups today, begin to demand ideological purity. They get bungled down in theory and perfection and it becomes a race to who can reach the tip of the wing first before the entire movement collapses in on itself. You only need to look at the reaction of anarchists to Goldman's denunciation of the Bolsheviks to see how people will only hear what they want to hear, even the so-called enlightened revolutionaries.
Through reading Goldman we learn that in her heart she is right, but in practice we will always be chasing "the beautiful ideal."
June 7, 2010
This book was amazing. I never thought a nearly 2,000 page autobiography of a woman who lived 100 years ago could be so inspiring, funny, poignant, thought-provoking, educational, honest, and sad. Goldman was an incredible writer — the book mixes momentous historical events which she lived through and participated in, and small-scale vignettes about her personal life and relationships to other people. Both are fascinating.
As a social justice activist, it's was also riveting to read a firsthand account of how much, and how little, has changed since Goldman was fighting for a more just and humane society a century ago. The book is STRONGLY recommended for serious readers and modern-day radicals.
¡Si se puede E.G.!
As a social justice activist, it's was also riveting to read a firsthand account of how much, and how little, has changed since Goldman was fighting for a more just and humane society a century ago. The book is STRONGLY recommended for serious readers and modern-day radicals.
¡Si se puede E.G.!
July 11, 2015
From modest accounts of her own unbelievably brave stance against the various forms of violence of the (United) State(s) to loving descriptions of hundreds of incredible people which Emma met during her activities, and to testimonies almost too terrible to read of the abominable farce of the Russian revolution, this book swept me of my feet and immensely encouraged me to stand on my own feet at the same time. A personal drama and a rare historic perspective, even if repetitive in style at times, I guess it (re)presents an anarchist life better than any textbook - and that with barely a paragraph on anarchism itself.
April 15, 2015
It is amazing how this compassionate, vibrant, obstinate woman is able to transport the reader from the transformation of her life from early adulthood to mature adulthood as though we are right there with her through it all. Although I do not necessarily agree with her political views, she gives a unique and valuable perspective both on the bourgeoisie of American Capitalism and on the disappointing realities of Russia's Communist Revolution. A must-read for anyone who wants a better understanding of political change and revolutionary thought.
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