Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years, Vol. 2: Making Speech Free, 1902-1909 [Paperback]

Emma Goldman (Author), Candace Falk (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 16, 2008

Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years reconstructs the life of Emma Goldman through significant texts and documents. These volumes collect personal letters, lecture notes, newspaper articles, court transcripts, government surveillance reports, and numerous other documents, many 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 2: Making Speech Free, 1902-1909 extends many of the themes introduced in the previous volume, including Goldman's evolving attitudes toward political violence and social reform, intensified now by documentary accounts of the fomenting revolution in Russia and the legal opposition toward anarchism and labor organizing in the United States. Always an impassioned defender of free expression, Goldman's launch of her magazine Mother Earth in 1906 signaled a desire to bring radical thought into wider circulation, and its pages brought together modern literary and cultural ideas with a radical social agenda, quickly becoming a platform for her feminist critique, among her many other challenges to the status quo. With abundant examples from her writings and speeches, this volume details Goldman's emergence as one of American history's most fiercely outspoken opponents of hypocrisy and pretension in politics and public life.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This volume, along with its predecessor and the larger microfilm collection of Goldman documents, is a real achievement and a major contribution to the study of the American left. It 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

“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.”--Documentary Editing

Book Description

Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years reconstructs the life of Emma Goldman through significant texts and documents. These volumes collect personal letters, lecture notes, newspaper articles, court transcripts, government surveillance reports, and numerous other documents, many 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 2: Making Speech Free, 1902-1909 extends many of the themes introduced in the previous volume, including Goldman's evolving attitudes toward political violence and social reform, intensified now by documentary accounts of the fomenting revolution in Russia and the legal opposition toward anarchism and labor organizing in the United States. Always an impassioned defender of free expression, Goldman's launch of her magazine Mother Earth in 1906 signaled a desire to bring radical thought into wider circulation, and its pages brought together modern literary and cultural ideas with a radical social agenda, quickly becoming a platform for her feminist critique, among her many other challenges to the status quo. With abundant examples from her writings and speeches, this volume details Goldman's emergence as one of American history's most fiercely outspoken opponents of hypocrisy and pretension in politics and public life.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 664 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press (July 16, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252075439
• ISBN-13: 978-0252075438
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 6.9 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,353,345 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Highly recommended", September 25, 2009

By 

Tessa Fisher - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years, Volume Two: Making Speech Free, 1902-1909 (Hardcover)

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

"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'

"A magnificently scholarly volume rich in historical information, it is a book that historians and those writing about American social movements will mine for many years to come." --Sharon Presley, 'Social Anarchism'

"This volume, along with its predecessor and the larger microfilm collection of Goldman documents, is a real achievement and a major contribution to the study of the American left. It 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'

"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'