“What this remarkable book does . . . is to remind us of that passion, that revolutionary fervor, that camaraderie, that persistence in the face of political defeat and personal despair so needed in our time as in theirs.” —Howard Zinn

“Fascinating …With marvelous clarity and depth, Candace Falk illuminates for us an Emma Goldman shaped by her time yet presaging in her life the situation and conflicts of women in our time.” —Tillie Olsen

One of the most famous political activists of all time, Emma Goldman was also infamous for her radical anarchist views and her “scandalous” personal life. In public, Goldman was a firebrand, confidently agitating for labor reform, anarchism, birth control, and women’s independence. But behind closed doors she was more vulnerable, especially when it came to the love of her life. 

Love, Anarchy, & Emma Goldman is an account of Goldman’s legendary career as a political activist. But it is more than that—it is a biography that offers an intimate look at how Goldman’s passion for social reform dovetailed with her passion for one man: Chicago activist, hobo king, and red-light district gynecologist Ben Reitman. Candace Falk takes us into the heart of their tumultuous love affair, finding that even as Goldman lectured on free love, she confronted her own intense jealousy. 
 
As director of the Emma Goldman papers, Falk had access to over 40,000 writings by Goldman—including her private letters and notes—and she draws upon these archives to give us a rare insight into this brilliant, complex woman’s thoughts. The result is both a riveting love story and a primer on an exciting, explosive era in American politics and intellectual life.  

CANDACE FALK is the editor and director of the Emma Goldman Papers, a project of the University of California, Berkeley and of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission of the National Archives. She was awarded the Kanner Prize for the best bibliographical work in Women’s History, as well as a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship.

"From a 'lone and woeful childhood,' Goldman took a vision of what might have been. Her ability to transform her memories of oppression and abandonment into an abiding energy on behalf of other victims of injustice and desiring love was her great triumph. The counterpoint between the two romances, private and public, silent and spoken, creates the tension of her life. Candace Falk...draws us into this story that [Goldman] never quite tells - about the relationship between love and anarchy, Goldman's two grand passions. The story contains the anarchist ideal - of a love that overcomes the seeming contradiction between security and freedom - but also the proverbial anarchy of women's love. The 'spirit of revolt' that Goldman defined as the essence of anarchism also marks the love that calls into question on the institutions of war, the inevitability of aggression and the conventions of moral justification. And it expresses the love that was manifest in Goldman extraordinary friendships."

"Fascinating. . . . With marvelous clarity and depth, Candace Falk illuminates for us an Emma Goldman shaped by her time yet presaging in her life the situation and conflicts of women in our time."

"For public figures, a clash between their inner and outer lives is nearly inevitable.  In the case of Emma Goldman, the struggle was epic—and stunningly first brought to light in Candace Falk’s groundbreaking biography."

"Recommended." 

"Wherever social and intellectual history is taught instructors will welcome this paperback edition. . . . This is a notable biography of one of the twentieth century's most remarkable women."

"What this remarkable book does . . . is to remind us of that passion, that revolutionary fervor, that camaraderie, that persistence in the face of political defeat and personal despair so needed in our time as in theirs."

New York Times most notable biographies, 1990.

"To read the sometimes sappy, often moving, ever scandalous love letters of Emma Goldman and her great passion Ben Reitman is to ride the roller coaster of True Romance. Candace Falk renders a valuable service by giving us plain the inside story of this intense ten-year affair."

"When feminists discovered that the personal was political, Goldman became a model, and one whose views seemed strikingly contemporary. While other activists were fighting for the vote, she was championing 'free love,' birth control and independence from those 'internal tyrants, far more harmful to life and growth,' that stifled women's emancipation....Fascinating."

"The prodigious research informing this book brings readers an intimate and engaging look into the life and loves of Emma Goldman. Falk persuasively explores the brilliant and desperate relation of private loves to political ideals. She gently follows Goldman’s struggle with the long-term consequences of childhood abandonment and loneliness. Courageous, vulnerable, compelling, flawed…the Emma Goldman who emerges in this skilled biographical portrait sometimes disappointed her friends and lovers but never ceased her struggle to be as she longed to be: big and strong and free.'”