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The definitive biography of Sylvia Pankhurst, a woman ahead of her times - political rebel, human rights champion and radical feminist. Born into one Britain's most famous activist families, Sylvia Pankhurst was a natural rebel; a talented artist, prolific writer and newspaper editor. A free spirit and radical visionary, history placed her in the shadow of her famous mother, Emmeline, and elder sister, Christabel. Yet Sylvia Pankhurst was the most revolutionary of them all. Sylvia found her voice fighting militantly for votes for women. Her commitment to equality caused her to serve multiple sentences in Holloway prison - where she was tortured. The vote was just the beginning of her lifelong defence of human rights, from her early warnings of the rise of fascism in Europe, to her campaigning against racism and championing of the liberation struggles in Africa and India. Sylvia's adventures in America, Soviet Russia, Scandinavia, Europe and East Africa made her a true internationalist. She was one of the great minds of the modern era, engaging with political giants, including Churchill, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, George Bernard Shaw, W.E.B. Du Bois and Haile Selassie. Her intimate life was no less controversial. The rupture between Sylvia, Emmeline and Christabel became worldwide news. Her love affair with the married Keir Hardie was one of the great political romances of the age, and she never married her life partner Silvio Corio, with whom she had a son at the age of forty-five. Acclaimed biographer Rachel Holmes interweaves the personal and political to reveal Sylvia Pankhurst as never before. This major new biography celebrates a life in resistance, painting a compelling portrait of one of the greatest unsung political figures of the twentieth century.… (more)
User reviews
I tend to read several books at a time and
While many of the issues Pankhurst confronted are still with us today I think another valuable aspect of this work is showing the reader the types of decisions a person has to make if they decide to follow what they believe to be right. Taking a stand, broadly speaking, can be straightforward. But figuring out exactly how you're going to make that stand can put one at odds with people making the same general stand. It is in deciding specifically how one tries to make an impact that one really has to make tough decisions. Sometimes family and friends are sacrificed in the name of what is right. These more nuanced choices are highlighted in this volume because Pankhurst never shied away from the difficult decisions.
I highly recommend this to any reader interested in the early suffrage movements, as well as 20th century activism as a whole.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.