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!
New interview with Rev Left Radio
My latest guest appearance on the always-fun podcast, Revolutionary Left Radio
The video from my event at City Lights with Professor Page Herrlinger →
City Lights Live!
Final cover jacket design for Red Valkyries!
This is the jacket for the hardback book coming out in July.
Even more amazing blurbs for Red Valkyries!
“Until the late 20th century, you could pay close attention in school, graduate from a prestigious university with a degree in history and still never find out who Harriet Tubman was. Outrageous, right? But due to capitalist ideology and Cold War hangover, you could still do all that and never learn about Alexandra Kollontai or Inessa Armand, or any of history’s great Communist women. Kristen Ghodsee’s riveting account of these complicated, imperfect and inspiring lives is an outstanding corrective to our miseducation, one that’s long overdue.”
—Liza Featherstone
“Funny and politically illuminating, Ghodsee writes with the clear-sighted directness of the revolutionary women she describes. Women’s sexual, political and daily emancipation were the eye of the socialist storm for Kollantai, Krupskaya, Armand and Lagadinova. Ghodsee’s book breathes new life into their stories of how to create a world without patriarchy.”
—Elizabeth Armstrong, Smith College
“Kristen Ghodsee’s new book is a well-documented and immensely personal guide to the 20th-century East European socialist women’s movement. The author extracts from silence and saves from oblivion five women who have made an attempt to change not only their own, personal history, but also political, social and cultural history of women in Europe and worldwide. It is a story about a communist revolution in which women played a significant role, creating and implementing the project of a better world for all people. Reflections on the past are not, however, used to celebrate it nostalgically, but to draw conclusions for the future – how to act to build an alternative to the hegemony of capitalism and nationalism. This well-written, passionate story about the “red Valkyries” shows that socialism is not a song of the past, but still valid and long-awaited response to the challenges of the present world. Ghodsee argues that the history is not over, but rushes forward. Speeding up, however, it needs signposts to avoid falling into the abyss. The Red Valkyries will be perfect for this role.”
—Agnieszka Mrozik, Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences
New subtitle for Red Valkyries
The Verso marketing folks have weighed in and changed my subtitle. One thing about trade publishing (or crossover publishing) is how much less control the author has on things like titles and subtitles. But this was a good compromise and I think it still captures the spirit of the book. Here’s also the new descriptive copy:
The overlooked revolutionary women of Eastern Europe and their contribution to socialist feminist history, from the author of Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism.
Through a series of lively and accessible biographical essays, Red Valkyries explores the history of socialist feminism by examining the revolutionary careers of five prominent socialist women active in the 19th and 20th centuries.
• Alexandra Kollontai, the aristocratic Bolshevik
• Nadezhda Krupskaya, the radical pedagogue
• Inessa Armand, the polyamorous firebrand
• Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the deadly sniper
• Elena Lagadinova, the partisan turned scientist turned global women's rights activist
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 fought for social change with important lessons for feminist activists today.
In brief conversational chapters Ghodsee tells the story of the personal challenges faced by earlier generations of socialist and communist women and renders the big ideas of socialist feminism accessible to those newly inspired by the emancipatory politics of left feminist movements around the globe.
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.
Coming in July 2022!
Summer reading: 24/7 by Jonathan Crary
So many thoughts on this book…
“We are now in an era in which there is an overarching prohibition on wishes other than those linked to individual acquisition, accumulations, and power.” page 111
“Everyone, we are told–not just businesses and institutions–needs an ‘online presence,’ needs 24/7 exposure, to avoid social irrelevance or professional failure. But the promotion of these alleged benefits is a cover for conditions in which privacy is impossible, and in which one becomes a permanent site of data-harvesting and surveillance.” page 104
Cover mock ups for the next book
I love them all. Can my book have all three covers?
