Sylvia Pankhurst Natural born rebel

Review by Booklist Review

From the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, no name was more closely associated with citizen resistance and democratic socialism than that of Sylvia Pankhurst. As the child of crusading parents, reform and activism were mother's milk for Pankhurst. As a suffragette, socialist, artist, and activist, Pankhurst devoted every fiber of her being throughout her 78 years of life to conducting a concerted rebellion against authority, most famously as a frontline warrior in Britain's fight for women's equality. That commitment to women's rights naturally segued to equal fervor for racial and income equality, battles that pitted her against authoritarianism, misogyny, racism, and militarism in places as distant as Russia and Ethiopia. In a massive and massively detailed examination of Pankhurst's personal and political passions, Holmes paints a vivid portrait of a crusading pioneer for women's rights, placing Pankhurst at the epicenters of battles for human dignity throughout the modern era and around the globe. Sadly, Pankhurst's causes are still being fought on the world stage today; fortunately, Holmes' comprehensive biography can serve as inspiration for new generations of activists.Women in Focus: The 19th in 2020

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Biographer Holmes (Eleanor Marx: A Life) captures the full sweep of suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst's career and influence on 20th-century politics in this magnificent account. Born in 1882 in Manchester, England, Pankhurst learned about the radical causes of the late 19th century from her father, Richard, a lawyer and socialist, and mother, Emmeline, founder of the Women's Social and Political Union. In 1913, Pankhurst, who had trained to be an artist, broke from her mother's organization and founded a suffragette group more radically leftist in its political orientation but less violent in its tactics. WWI pushed Pankhurst into pacifism and revolutionary communism, cementing her estrangement from Emmeline and earning her a jail sentence for sedition. After women won the right to vote, Pankhurst, spurred on by her relationship with Silvio Corio, an Italian anarchist with whom she had an out-of-wedlock son at age 45, turned her attention to anti-fascism, anti-colonialism, and the Ethiopian independence movement. In the mid-1950s, she moved to Ethiopia at the invitation of Emperor Haile Selassie and received a full state funeral when she died there in 1960. Richly textured with historical details, crackling with the vibrant personalities of major and minor figures, and interspersed with clear-eyed, incisive analyses of Pankhurst's character and actions, this is a flat-out fabulous biography. History buffs will be mesmerized. (Dec.)

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Review by Library Journal Review

Sylvia Pankhurst's (1882--1960) long and storied life as a political activist is explored in this new biography by Holmes (Eleanor Marx: A Life). Pankhurst's mother, Emmeline, founded the first women-only suffrage organization in England with her daughters but eventually expelled Sylvia for her radical support of the labor movement. This led Sylvia to start her own more leftist women suffrage organization, explore a career as an artist, and become intimately involved with politician and labor activist Keir Hardie. She later became a communist leader and anticolonial activist, living with Italian anarchist Silvio Corio and supporting Ethiopia's independence. Holmes includes some new finds from recently opened archives and delves deeper into Pankhurst's personal life than other biographers. But this lengthy book drifts back and forth chronologically, repeats many of the same stories, includes an exhaustive amount of political and historical background, and veers into long biographies of the hundreds of activists and politicians with whom Pankhurst interacted. VERDICT Pankhurst's life is ripe for discovery by new readers and a younger generation. However, this biography is often so dense that her story often gets lost within its pages.--Kate Stewart, Tucson

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