Verso is having a 60% off sale until the end of January, and you can score a copy of Red Valkyries for $9.98. That’s actually cheaper than my author discount!
Audio book of Red Valkyries is now available →
It’s available on Audible, Spotify, and wherever you get your audiobooks. I am extremely grateful to Tantor Media and to Esther Wane for their amazing work on the project.
New interview with Rev Left Radio
My latest guest appearance on the always-fun podcast, Revolutionary Left Radio
A lovely review by Oana Uiorean in Liber →
“The political moment is again open to systemic change, after decades of fragmentation of the struggle. Who are today’s Red Valkyries? Some of them are in the US, fighting for racial justice in the streets or doing squad work in Congress on behalf of exploited populations. Others are in Latin America, mobilizing people for feminist strikes, for safe and legal abortion, and against the violence of international finance institutions. In Europe, they lead struggles for housing justice. In occupied Palestine, they stand up to apartheid. We may not know their names, but we don’t need to. One doesn’t have to be a communist to understand that no individual brings about fundamental changes alone. Successful revolutions are the sum of collectives coming together and doing the work”
Always excited to be in the New York Times! →
It’s not a review, but it is nice to be included in the list of books recently published!
Liza Featherstone reviews Red Valkyries in Jacobin →
Pre-Publication Review of Red Valkyries in Library Journal
Ghodsee packs a punch in her short volume focusing on five different Red Valkyries. Resistant to the label “feminist” because of its close association with the western liberal feminist agenda, Ghodsee explores her socialist women activists one by one, tracing their lives and work as they respond to some of the most significant Russian and world events of the 20th century. As an expert in her field, she deftly covers vast amounts of history, political theory, and complicated personal relationships in an accessible way for all levels of informed readers. She invokes a large body of research, which can be seen in the extensive notes section and the “suggestions for further reading” pages. But her prose is never too academic, and the little-known stories of the women are captivating. The Red Valkyries’ accomplishments, in everything from record-breaking sniper kills to the formation of several political institutions for women’s emancipation, help challenge narrow views of what it meant to empower women in the twentieth century. Ghodsee ends the book with nine overarching lessons to take from the women’s lives, which helps reframe their efforts for today’s activists.
VERDICT A timely and fascinating volume for those interested in Russian and socialist history.
Reviewed by Halie Kerns , Jun 01, 2022
And another blurb for Red Valkyries from Vijay Prashad! →
“A beautiful book about the intimate lives and bold ideas of a range of Communist women, people who built their revolutionary dreams into reality. Ghodsee lifts up the immense contradiction between the future-oriented social hopes of these revolutionaries, these exiles from the future, and the grip of the social conventions of the present.”
More blurbs from Slavoj Zizek and Sheila Rowbotham!
“In our historical moment, quotas of women in power positions and correct manners or expressions are obfuscating the long historical link between feminism and radical politics. Ghodsee’s Red Valkyries is exactly the book needed to correct this misperception and help feminism to rejoin its radical past. The five figures analysed were fighters who pursued the feminist cause through their full engagement in revolutionary political struggle. Can we still imagine this, in our era obsessed with victimization?”
“Written with clarity and zest, Red Valkyries is an illuminating introduction to the extraordinary lives of prominent socialist women in the Soviet Union and Bulgaria.”
The final cover design and blurb for Red Valkyries
Through a series of lively and accessible biographical essays, Red Valkyries explores the history of socialist feminism century Eastern Europe. By examining the revolutionary careers of five prominent socialist women active in the 19th and 20th centuries-the aristocratic Bolshevik, Alexandra Kollontai; the radical pedagogue, Nadezhda Krupskaya; the polyamorous firebrand, Inessa Armand; the deadly sniper, Lyudmila Pavlichenko; and the partisan turned scientist turned global women's activist, Elena Lagadinova-Kristen Ghodsee tells the story of the personal challenges faced by earlier generations of socialist and communist women. None of these women were "perfect" leftists. Their lives were filled with inner conflicts, contradictions, and sometimes outrageous privilege, but they still managed to move forward their own political projects through perseverance and dedication to their cause. Always walking a fine line between the need for class solidarity and the desire to force their sometimes callous male colleagues to take women's issues seriously, these five women pursued novel solutions with lessons for activists of today. In brief conversational chapters-with plenty of concrete examples from the history of the state socialist countries in Eastern Europe and contemporary reflections on the status of women in the world today-Ghodsee renders the big ideas of socialist feminism accessible to those newly inspired by the emancipatory politics of insurgent left feminist movements around the globe.
