Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967-1975

by Alice Echols

Examines the most controversial and explosive shaping force in the women's movement in America, and traces its influence on modern feminism

Genres: Feminism, History, Nonfiction, Politics, Gender, American History, Womens

446 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Alice Echols is a cultural critic and historian. A specialist of the 1960s, Echols is a professor at the University of Southern California.


Associate Professor of English, Gender Studies and History

Reviews

[Adrienne · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's sadly common for present-day feminists to paint second-wave feminism as a monolithic movement, and to reduce second-wave feminism, in all its complexity, to a series of failures and examples of shortsightedness (though, to be fair, Echols points out that radical feminists of the second wave did the same thing to first-wave feminists). Although Daring to Be Bad was written before what we now call the third wave of feminism, it offers an important corrective to these tendencies on the part of third-wave feminists. Although it focuses on radical feminism, it does the important work of separating that particular set of politics from the liberal, socialist, and cultural strands of feminism that were developing both contemporaneously with and immediately after radical feminism. It points out the political differences between groups and individual feminists, challenging the notion that radical feminism denotes a monolithic set of theories and strategies. Most importantly, although Echols does not shy away from pointing out the weaknesses and prejudices in radical feminist thought, she also appreciates and acknowledges radical feminism for what it was: a group of young, usually relatively privileged, well-meaning but highly flawed women trying to make sense of their immediate historical circumstances, creating both solutions and further problems in the process. A must-read for anyone interested in gender and sexuality activism-- particularly those seeking insight into how not to repeat past mistakes.

[Dan Sharber · Rating 4 out of 5]

very good movement history! i would also recommend having both Sisterhood is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women's Liberation Movement and Public Women, Public Words: A Documentary History of American Feminism as between both of these books you will be able to read almost every article or essay that echols references in the book.

[fausto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Daring to Be Bad was a very influential book in the documentation of radical feminism, even today, is almost always quote when came the discussion of radical feminism herstory. Is a very well-written book (originally her PhD dissertation), and obviously pioneering the "official" herstory of the radical feminism movement in the US.

Nevertheless, her herstory is very biased, specially the main thesis of the book (besides the documentation of the movement) that in the 70's radical feminism succumbed to "cultural feminism", an apolitical and counter-cultural derivative. For instance:

1)When you read not only the book, but her primary sources, you can easily find that "biological explanations" were not just always there, but where a big influence in all the stages of radical feminism.

2) The version of what Echols calls "radical feminism" (that is, "true" radical feminism) is pretty reduced, after reading the book you can have the sensation that radical feminism lasted only two or three years, and that the only "real" radical feminists where the feminist groups "New York Radical Women", "Redstockings" and "New York Radical Feminists" and specifically some individuals like Shulamith Firestone, Anne Koedt, Carol Hanisch, Kate Millett (who is hardly mentioned in the book) and of course, Ellen Willis (whose opinions seem to shape the whole vision of the story)

3) Valerie Solana's SCUM Manifesto is barely mentioned on their own terms, and its influence is almost reduced to Cell 16.

Probably the most insidious part of the book is the whole question of "cultural feminism". Echols is very careful to accuse straight women for the creation and promotion of "cultural feminism" specially Jane Alpert, Robin Morgan and Kathleen Barry. But of course, she tries to dimiss the whole question of the relation of lesbian separatism/feminism to the so called "women's culture". Lesbian feminism and separatism is addressed almost entirely with the section dedicated to The Furies Collective (in the 5th chapter of the book she also reconstruct the born of the group Radicalesbians and in the 6th chapter she barely mentions Jill Johnston)

If you read Bonnie Morri's "The Dissapearing L" you can find that women's culture was actually in most of the cases Lesbian culture, in the 70's and 80's lesbians cannot find any positive representation of their existance in the malestream cultural institutions. "Cultural feminist" institutions were born from lesbian feminist activism, creating lesbian presses, cultural centers, bars, bookstores, music festivals, etc. the main objetive of women's culture were to create a positive and healthy environment where lesbians can produce their cultural existance in their own terms.

Echols often victimizes straight feminist for the lesbian-feminist critique of heterosexuality, suddently in the Echol's narrative, lesbians became an all-powerful police that scolded and controlled heterosexual radical feminists. Of course, all of this is insulting, lesbian-hating and opression is barely mentioned. And straight feminist became kinda martyrs.

She also never mentions that lesbian-separatists where the first to put race and class issues at the center of feminist debates, long before it became a common place in the 80's.
Lesbian magazines and newspapers tends to be class-sensitive (a policy of "more if you can, less if you can´t" was almost required) and that applies to all kind of lesbian-runing/owned establishments (for instance, restaurants and music festivals)

So is a good book, but one needs to be alert of the lesbian-hating/erasure premise of her hypothesis

[Craig Werner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Echols sets herself the task of insisting on the importance of "radical feminism" to the history of women's liberation generally and more specifically to the history of "second wave" feminism. Echols published the book in the late 1980s when what the women's movement was dominated by what Echols calls the "cultural feminism" which placed a vision of a separate women's culture grounded in a frequently mystified notion of feminine energy; and the "liberal feminism" of NOW, which sought inclusion of women in the economic mainstream rather than a fundamental transformation of society. It's important to keep the moment of publication in mind when reading Daring To Be Bad because Echols spends a fair amount of time contrasting the cluster of interrelated movements at the center of her book with what she clearly feels are the conceptual and practical failings of cultural and liberal feminism. Another way to say that is to observe that Echols is sympathetic to the truly radical visions of organizations like New York Radical Women, Cell 16, the Redstockings, radicallesbians, WITCH and the Furies. This is very much a "sixties" book which believes that the fundamental questions being asked as women moved through and beyond the civil rights movement and the New Left are the important ones: how can we imagine renewed relationships between men and women within a society that truly values a broader vision of social justice? How can we separate women's behavior--psychological, political, sexual--from the various forms of "false consciousness" and/or institutional deformation that shape it?

I don't want to imply that Daring To Be Bad is a polemic. At its core, its a thoroughly researched study of the groups of women who rejected NOW's liberal vision and grappled with the question of how their "vanguard" vision--some accepted the term, some wouldn't have--related to the experience of "ordinary" women. For the most part, they failed to answer the question in satisfactory ways. Like the New Left and Black Power movements, radical feminism had collapsed by the mid-1970s, largely because it became entangled in layers and layers of ideological arguments over issues like lesbianism, hierarchies within the movement--several groups rejected all forms of expertise and assigned tasks, including public spokeswoman status, by lots--; and, by the mid-1970s, the relationship between middle-class white women and the poor and/or non-white women who saw the issues from a very different angle. Echols does a very good job delineating the evolving differences between the organizations and tendencies within radical feminism. Appropriately, she builds those stories around the powerful and often problematic presence of women like Ti-Grace Atkinson, Ellen Willis, Anne Koedt, Jane Alpert, Kathie Sarachild, Susan Brownmiller, Roxanne Dunbar and Shulamith Firestone. That's a good list of women, but I did find myself wondering at times why Echols didn't talk about the arc of someone like Adrienne Rich, clearly radical but yet part of the web of radical feminist organizations. That's important in part because Rich had closer relationships with black women at the time, especially June Jordan and Audre Lorde. There's a bit of the bicoastal bias that effects almost all histories of the radical sixties. We learn a lot about New York, Boston and Washington, and a bit about Gainesville and the Bay Area, but the only heartland city that receives any attention at all is Chicago. (I mention this in part because the only one of the main players I knew at all was Ellen Willis who when I met her was working with the GI Coffee House movement in Colorado Springs. Like civil rights, feminism happened everywhere. That's not really Echols' story to tell, but I'd love to see women's historians start developing the micro studies that thicken our sense of the movement. They may be doing that in journals, but as far as I can tell the research hasn't surfaced in book form if it's happening at all)

I emerged from the book saddened by the fact that today radical feminism exists as a major force only within the realm of academia. Liberal feminism has almost entirely eclipsed the visions that asked more fundamental questions and promised--in a utopian manner for the most part--more profound social transformations. But for me and many others--some of whom aren't consciously aware of the connections--radical feminism deserves the credit for allowing me to live a less oppressive life and be a better father, husband, teacher. Daring to Be Bad is the best introduction I'm aware of to a history that needs to be remembered.

[Billy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alice Echols’s Daring to be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967-1975.
Radical Feminism Emerged in 1967 but by 1975 internal contradictions within the movement diluted its radicalism into a tamer cultural feminism. The National Organization of Women (NOW) stands for liberal, NOT RADICAL, feminism. Radical feminism was a “political movement dedicated to eliminating the sex-class system.” (6) It aimed to “fundamentally restructure private and public life.” (11) It did not look for gender equality within the already unequal society; instead, it aimed to vilify men—and not capitalism, racism or imperialism—as the cause of women’s inequality.
Echols agrees with Evans in that male chauvinism in the Civil Rights and New Left movements prompted a separate Female Consciousness. To Echols, however, this was more a reaction, and not a setting in which valuable organization skills and confidence was found. SDS was especially sexist. Oppression in these groups and movements prompted a separate women’s movement. Women felt further excluded by the sub-groups within these movements that emerged, including Black Power and men’s involvement in the military draft. Radical women took a cue from Black Power. It inspired them and “enabled them to argue that it was valid for women to organize around their own oppression and to define the terms of their struggle.” (49) In short, Echols adds to the historiography by emphasizing the radicalism of these movements.

The book, in short:
- Early feminists did not call themselves feminists. They were Radical Women.
o The first split (of many) within this movement was between the “feminists” and the “politicos.”
 Feminists felt that men were the enemy.
 Politicos felt that capitalism was the enemy; women should partake in a larger revolution to overthrow the system.
o Problematically, all forms of organization, because they were formed mostly by men, were oppressive.
- Lesbian-Feminism is not a part of feminist/radical feminism. Instead, it came from the politico camp. When leftists were leaving political life, lesbianism became the most radical approach.
o There ensued a “gay-straight split”
o Lesbians argued that only by being lesbian could a radical feminist truly realize their place in society. They would no longer be beholden to men for sex, pay, or required to use birth control.
o This alienated heterosexual feminists, who diverged with this group.
o Arguments over whether or not lesbianism was socially vs. biologically constructed arose, deepening the divide.
 Lesbian issue conflicted with the universal female model pushed by radical feminists. In this way, it helped lead to cultural feminism.

- Radical Feminism focused on men, and not any other construct, as the cause of their oppression
- With pushing the gender issue to the fore of social critiques, liberal women were forced to address their arguments.
- Gender trumped class or race.
- Abortion should be legal across the board.
- It claimed that all women were equal, that sisterhood could overcome class and race. This claim has proved to be false.
o Class and Race differences were there from the beginning.
o Bickering over them led to the movement’s infighting
o Lesbianism questioned the claim that all women were equal
- Culture feminism took radical feminism’s place.
o Focuses on a female counterculture, not struggles against the structural forces that create inequality.
o Is okay with capitalist exploitation of women while pushing for women’s rightful place of moral superiority above men.

[ASC Library]

305.4 Ech

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A HISTORICAL SURVEY THAT FOCUSES ON THE LESS-‘MAINSTREAM’ FEMINIST GROUPS

Alice Echols teaches history and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California. She wrote in the Introduction to this 1989 book, “In the fall of 1967 small groups of radical women began meeting in the United States to discuss the problem of male supremacy. At that time the majority were committed to organizing a women’s liberation movement within the larger radical Movement. Indeed, most early women’s liberation groups were dominated by ‘politicos’ who attributed women’s oppression to capitalism, whose primary loyalty was to the left, and who longed for the imprimatur of … male leftists. ‘Feminists,’ or radical feminists, who opposed the subordination of women’s liberation to the left and for whom male supremacy was not a mere epiphenomenon of capitalism, were an embattled minority in the movement’s infancy.

“However, within two years radical feminism had established itself as the most vital and imaginative force within the women’s liberation movement. Radical feminism rejected both the politico position that socialist revolution would bring about women’s liberation and the liberal feminist solution of integrating women into the public sphere. Radical women argued that women constituted a sex-class, that relations between women and men needed to be recast in political terms, and that gender rather than class was the primary contradiction…

“Radical feminists articulated the earliest and most provocative critiques of the family, marriage, love, normative heterosexuality, and rape. They fought for safe, effective, accessible contraception, the repeal of all abortion laws… community-controlled child care centers; and an end to the media’s objectification of women… And in defying the cultural injunction against female self-assertion and subjectivity, radical feminists ‘dared to be bad.’’ (Pg. 3-4) She continues, “By 1975 radical feminism virtually ceased to exist as a movement. Once radical feminism was superseded by cultural feminism, activism became largely the province of liberal feminists.” (Pg. 5)

She goes on, “liberal feminism benefited from the dissipation of radical feminism… liberal feminism became the uncontested voice of feminism, thus allowing it to define the political agenda of the women’s movement for the public-at-large. Certainly one of the reasons for liberal feminism’s success .. was that it moved closer to radical feminism as it embraced the idea that the personal is political and the practice of consciousness-raising… But radical feminism it was not, and this was equally important to its success. To many women, liberal feminism’s considerably more modest goal of bringing women in the mainstream seemed more … realistic, than the radical feminist project of fundamentally restructuring private and public life.” (Pg. 11)

She observes, “Radical women agreed that they needed to organize separately from men, but they disagreed over the nature and purpose of the separation… Was it correct for women to exclude men from their meetings… out of the conviction that women needed ‘to organize out of the earshot of the oppressor’? Should women’s groups focus exclusively on women’s issues, or should they commit … to struggling against the war and racism as well?... From the beginning radical women debated these questions, often hotly.” (Pg. 51)

Of early women’s groups, she comments, “the problem [was that] These groups were composed of women whose backgrounds were very similar and who were denizens of a Movement subculture which was in some respects as exclusionary as a sorority. The desire for solidarity and security were understandable, but the cliquishness of these groups impeded that acculturation of new women outside the left and promoted parochialism within the movement.” (Pg. 72)

Of the famous ‘bra-burning’ issue at the 1968 Miss America protest, she argues, “Most feminist accounts of the protest suggest that the media invented the bra-burning to discredit the movement. But at least one of the organizers of the protest reportedly leaked word of the bra-burning to stimulate media interest in the action. Those feminists who sanctimoniously disavowed the bra-burning as a media fabrication were either misinformed or disingenuous.” (Pg. 94)

She summarizes, “From the beginning, the women’s liberation movement was internally fractured… Radical feminists’ tendency to privilege gender over race and class, and to treat women as a homogenized unity, was in large measure a reaction to the left’s dismissal of gender as a ‘secondary contradiction.’ Moreover, the politico-feminist schism was so debilitating that it seemed to confirm radical feminists’ suspicions that difference and sisterhood were mutually exclusive.” (Pg. 101)

She reports, “the issue of black women’s relationship to women’s liberation continued to haunt the movement… black women who identified with black power were typically unsympathetic to women’s liberation. Even black women who spoke out against sexism felt that racism was by far the more pressing issue. Ironically, the rise of black power… as it was articulated by black men, involved laying claim to masculine privileges denied them by a white supremacist society. Within the black liberation movement black women were expected to ‘step back into a domestic, submissive role’ so that black men could freely exercise their masculine prerogatives.” (Pg. 106)

She points out, “Because most early radical feminists believed that feminism expanded rather than contracted a left analysis, they did not typically criticize women who chose to remain personally involved in the male-dominated Movement… [But] by 1973, cultural feminists were beginning to make non-involvement with the so-called male Movement a precondition for feminist acceptance. Clearly, the continued sexism of large segments of the left contributed to many feminists’ estrangement from it.” (Pg. 135)

She admits, “But despite their sincere efforts to identify with those women most victimized by the system, the movement remained largely white and middle-class. The vast majority of working-class and third-world women were not ‘turned on’ by their feminism.” (Pg. 153)

She notes, “'The Feminists’ were the first of many radical feminist groups … [for whom] one’s personal life was a reflection of one’s politics… While 'The Feminists' proscribed heterosexual relationships rather than heterosexual sex, it was just a matter of time before the standard became even narrower and more confining. Indeed, The Feminists’ advocacy of separatism established the theoretical foundation for lesbian separatism.” (Pg. 185)

She recounts, “by 1973, the radical feminist movement was actually in decline. The groups responsible for making the important theoretical breakthroughs were either dead or moribund… The radical feminist wing became so absorbed in its own internal struggles that it sometimes found it difficult to look outside itself, to focus on the larger problem of male supremacy.” (Pg. 198) Later, she reports, “Estranged from the larger feminist community, The Furies grew increasingly isolated and insular… it is ironic that The Furies, who did so much to advance the movement’s understanding of women’s difference, were completely unable to tolerate differences among themselves.” (Pg. 238)

She concludes, “By 1975 it was too late for a revival of radical feminism… Much of the movement’s original leadership had been ‘decapitated’ during the acrimonious struggles over class and elitism. And, or course, a number of the founders had retreated from the movement when lesbianism was advocated as the natural and logical consequence of feminism.” (Pg. 284)

This is a fine survey (that includes far more ‘details’ about many of the groups than do similar surveys) that will be of great interest to those studying the women’s movement.

[Mark Bowles · Rating 4 out of 5]

The radical feminist movement took shape in 1968 and ended 5 years later. Abortion embodied and symbolized their fundamental demand--not merely formal equality for women but also self-determination. They fought against male supremacy. By 1975 cultural feminism overtook radical feminism. The attention turned from opposing male supremacy to creating a female counterculture. Cultural feminists sought to celebrate femaleness while radical feminists wanted to render gender irrevalent.
The 1960s radicalism represented a break from the 1950s. But, there were feminists in the 1910s who prefigured radical feminism.
What seems most rediculopus today about this movement in the 1960s was its utopianism. But, at that point there really was the belief thta economic and social justice could be achieved, the family reorganized, and hierarchies based on gender, race, and class erased.
Thesis: Radical feminism was more varied and radical than is generally thought today. By illuminating the reasons for the movements decline Echols hopes that the movement might be revitalized.

[Lynette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Echols groups early radical feminist organizations into tidy categories. It seems unlikely that the variety of groups developing in that time period can be so easily type-cast. While the categories help the reader understand the group's most prominent political or philosophical leaning, it is also important to acknowledge "messiness" in group activity and process. Her bias in support of radical feminism is felt, cultural feminism is disparaged, liberal feminists nearly dismissed from the scene.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good primer about the rise of radical feminism. A friend gave me this book when I told her that I had read Alice Echols' biography of Janis Joplin. I liked this book more for Echols' writing style than for what it was actually about.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

The subject matter leaves me cold. The research Echols conducted, though, is historically viable. It's great she conducted so many interviews, but the results she gleaned were often catty, priggish, and self-important.

[Leonardo]

Acerca de la historia de los rechazos sostenidos por los movimientos feministas norteamericanos.

Imperio Pág.208

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Useful for folks interested in feminism as well as recent political history in U.S.

[seth · Rating 1 out of 5]

The tone of this book is one step above Betty friedan's "lavender menace" comments.

[AskHistorians]

An account of how 1960s and 70s-era feminism developed - basically the classic history of Second-Wave feminism.

[Benjamin Fasching-Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here they are, the feminists even feminists love to hate or hate to love. Those wicked second wave, white, essentialist, at times homophobic, often 'sex negative' warriors who got us all talking about this stuff in the first place. Why is everyone so hard on these womyn? Shouldn't our rage be for our real enemy, patriarchy, a word we wouldn't be throwing around if it wasn't for the groups and individuals criticized here?

Echols gets into the infuriating details of endless meetings and conferences, the poorly executed actions and the successes like the Miss America disturbance, the splits and betrayals, and the strange sect-like cultures inside the feminist whirlwind beyond the calm waters of NOW and Ms. Magazine.

I especially enjoyed reading about Cell 16, and I want to go back to Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years 1960-1975 because I don't remember if Dunbar-Ortiz's version matches Echols's. Celibacy, Karate, Feminism and a scary-sounding name, all the right ingredients for a slick vanguard cadre! But all of the groups and leaders are just exciting to read about. The stakes were high, people were blowing themselves up for peace, and a whole lot of wimmin fought the whole world until, exhausted, they tried to retreat to matriarchal communes and force their sexuality to match their politics. It makes my head spin. I dimly remember how stupid the world was then. I mean, it's stupid now, but imagine a time when even the "left" ... imagine a time when feminist organizations threw out all the lesbians and then discovered that everyone who was actually active in the group was a lesbian. Oops. It's "only" 50 years ago but it feels like a whole other stupid planet.

The Black Panther Party and the Weather Underground come in for a real bashing here. More recent scholarship on the Panthers complicates the story a bit but the incidents described here are disappointing. I had never heard that Fred Hampton and Mark Clark asked the Weather Underground not to do the "Days of Rage." There's a lot about the Weather Underground that I don't like. In my pantheon of activist giants, the Weather Underground are a warning, like, don't go down that road. If you go from thinking of yourself as the white auxiliary of the Panthers and then decide to ignore Fred Hampton... still... I would like to read more Weather memoirs to better understand all that.

Shulamith Firestone and Susan Brownmiller on the other hand, might have been taken more to task for some of the racism that creeps into their writings about sexual violence. In the epilogue of the 1989 edition I read, "Daring to Be Bad" talks about racism in second-wave feminism, and points the reader to bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Angela Y. Davis and others. Black women who were in the second wave organizations covered here, like Celestine West and Florynce Kennedy are also acknowledged. I was a bit surprised how little the activists of 67-75 were concerned about sexual violence. Firestone is not someone I could work with in a collective. I am glad we are all a lot more intersectional now.

Thinking in 2024 about the questions that these activists were thinking about when I was a kid has helped me to clarify some of my own mishigas around gender. I think I can better see where some grey areas reach the essentialism border and I think I see better how some of the second wave stuff I have used to understand my world held the seeds of transphobia, so hopefully I can be a better, more inclusive feminist now.

[R.J. Gilmour · Rating 4 out of 5]

Echols' book, a seminal history of feminism that is taught in feminist history cources, charts the development of radical feminism between 1967 and 1975 by tracing not only the movement itself but how it was influenced by other identity movements in the 1960s. She traces not only the history of the various movements but also how the ideologies and ideas changed over time and were informed by different political agendas.

"Radical feminism rejected both the political position that socialist revolution would bring about a women's liberation and the liberal feminist solution of integrating women into the public sphere. Radical feminism argued that women constituted a sex-class, that relations between women and men needed to be recast in political terms, and that gender rather than class was the primary contradiction." 3

"Most fundamental, radical feminism was a political movement dedicated to eliminating the sex-class system, whereas cultural feminism was a countercultural movement aimed at reversing the cultural valuation of the male and the devaluation of the female." 6

"The radical feminists' declaration, "organize around your own oppression," soon degenerated into the narrower position, "organize around your own interests." 10

"Not surprisingly, liberal feminism benefited from the dissipation of radical feminism As countercultural activity replaced political activism, liberal feminism became the uncontested voice of feminism, this allowing it to define the political agenda of the women's movement for the public at large." 11

"Finally, "the personal is political" was one of those ideas whose rhetorical power seemed to work against or undermine its explication. It could, as we shall see, encourage a solipsistic preoccupation with self-transformation." 17

"From mid-1966 until late 1967 the new left responded to the challenge of black power by concentrating its efforts upon draft resistance and student organizing." 37

[Demetra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book on the history of the radical feminist movement! It is so informative and shines a critical light on a niche movement that has, rather unfortunately, fallen off the radar in women’s history.

I would not say that this is the most accessible book for a casual or relatively new reader/observer feminist theory. I read this for research purposes, and I would definitely suggest that, if this niche history is up your alley, you read it in tandem with other works from other prominent feminist writers, both from the time and contemporary alike. Introductory books on feminist thought provided very helpful, concise context and background for me while reading this book!

I really appreciated that Echols’s analysis and discussions included critiques of the shortcomings and oversights of the actions, practices, and theories of radical feminist, as I had the opportunities to interrogate those further through research of my own. Overall, Echols’s history of radical feminism is comprehensive, complete, and backed by an extensive bibliography, and I enjoyed reading this!

[Evan Milner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding!

Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America 1967-1975 manages to chart the fractious—often startlingly so—history of radical feminism without descending into a mere 'decline of the 60s' narrative, and without losing sight of the movement's myriad achievements. And it is entertaining to boot! Although the book's focus on the internal disputes and organizational splintering is not always edifying reading, it assisted me in following the development of the different strands of theory and practice that made up the movement.

[Eden · Rating 4 out of 5]

good historiography but I get a sense that the author doesn't really understand what Marxism is