Customer Reviews

Free Woman

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This book, if I understand the introduction properly, is a reworked version of a "young adult" biography, republished as a Kindle book. Don't let the fact that it is the only Kindle'd biography of Woodhull available tempt you into buying this book; it will annoy the specialist reader, and the generalist reader will come away from the book with a distorted view of Woodhull's views and her life.

The author presents a filtered and partial view of Woodhull, minimizing her involvement in the free love, Spiritualist and early socialist/communist movements, and leaving out her significant efforts as an apologist for eugenics entirely -- possibly in the name of sanitizing Woodhull for presentation as a strong precursor to modern feminist readers. Unfortunately, not only does this filtering strip away the origins of many of Woodhull's positions, and create awkward moments in the text, but it reduces a rich, complex and important figure in several important nineteenth century cultural movements to a cardboard cutout.

Specialists will be completely put off by the fictionalizing in the text, of which there is a great deal. While it is possible -- for example -- that documentary records of conversations between Woodhull and Colonel Blood, during the early days of their courtship, exist, allowing us to know *precisely* what they said to one another during a particular moonlit walk, I doubt it.

The author's demonstrated understanding of nineteenth century American culture is -- despite the "life and times" billing of the title -- is shallow, almost cartoonishly so at times. There is a very partial "life", and virtually no "times" in this book.

Definitely not worth ten bucks. The Wikipedia entry on Woodhull will provide an equal number of facts, with fewer distortions, and less effort required.