Anarchism and Other Essays

Emma Goldman gathered these essays from her lecture tours in 1910, and they still crackle with argument. Across a dozen pieces she defends anarchism against caricature, dismantles the case for marriage and the state, exposes the economics behind prostitution, and insists that women’s freedom must be sexual and social as well as political. A biographical sketch by Hippolyte Havel opens the book. Goldman writes as an agitator rather than an academic, plain and combative, drawing on prisons she knew from the inside and a movement she helped lead. Whether or not a reader shares her politics, the collection stands as a bracing document of American radicalism and early feminism at their most uncompromising. Offered here as a free PDF and EPUB edition.