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Life and Death

4.01  ·  Rating details ·  164 ratings  ·  15 reviews
A collection of her most incisive essays and unpublished speeches, Life and Death makes it clear why Dworkin has found her place in the canon of modern political thought. She begins here with a poignant autobiographical piece, in which she recounts with rare tenderness her childhood in Camden, New Jersey, her political odyssey, and the crushing pain of her brother's death. ...more
Paperback, 256 pages
Published January 15th 2002 by Free Press (first published March 10th 1997)
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Average rating 4.01  · 
Rating details
 ·  164 ratings  ·  15 reviews


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Michele bookloverforever
Mar 31, 2011 rated it really liked it
Shelves: feminist-classic
essays, newspaper articles, speeches about a variety of topics concerning misogyny and various forms of violence against women. Points out how pornography supports misogynistic violence against women. Points out how woman hating turns young women into prostitutes and is another form of violence against us. victims for sale so to speak. also deals with incest. strong opinions by strong woman. thank goodness for Ms.Dworkin. Never knew she also was survivor of battering and sexual assault. I speak ...more
Kathleen O'Neal
May 03, 2014 rated it it was amazing
I read this book in either a little over or a little less than twenty-four hours and I have to say that Andrea Dworkin really is one of the greatest feminist writers in American history. This is an incredibly moving and powerful collection and it makes me want to read everything else she has ever written.
seroquelle
Apr 12, 2014 rated it liked it
i advise even die-hard dworkin readers such as myself to pass this one over. this edition of speeches/essays is immediately striking as more paranoiac, disorganized and incoherent than her earlier writings. it is really evidence of her decaying mental state. i mean that in the most sympathetic way possible. don't even bother with the essay 'free expression in serbian rape/death camps'. it is based on a supposition of the existence of filmed rapes taken by the serbian army, this idea was put fort ...more
Ryan Mishap
Nov 23, 2015 rated it it was amazing
Deadly, blunt, furious and a good introduction for anyone who hasn't heard of Dworkin or only know her name as a bad word. Indeed, I don't think there is a writer or feminist as maligned and misread as Dworkin. No wonder: she doesn't make nice or mince words in the face of overwhelming male violence against women.

One of the most important concepts she relates has to do with pornography--that women and their bodies are not someone else's speech. Pornography happens to real women and has real eff
...more
Rididill
Jan 12, 2012 rated it really liked it
A collection of essays. This is the first Dworkin book I have read and I was kind of surprised how absolutely un-true so many of the stereotypes about her are. I have seen much more radical stuff on the internet. What surprised me was her level of compassion, astounding to me that she could maintain such openness and caring after suffering so much abuse. I particularly like the essay on the history of the founding fathers and the stuff on Israel and the holocaust, which were quite new territory ...more
Desiree
Mar 31, 2009 rated it did not like it
I don't know how I tolerated reading this. It was explicitly graphic.
Owen
Aug 07, 2018 rated it really liked it
Unique and incisive essays, speeches, and reflections on the horrorful incidents of the times. As always she is illuminating the shadows of our souls in a patriarchal and unjust world, and opening the eyes of many of her listeners and readers.
Iman
Jul 31, 2009 rated it really liked it
This book is very repetitive owing to the fact that it is a selection of lectures. I read the first couple of chapters and skimmed the rest. I gave it four stars as I feel it is an important book for everyone to read. It increased my awareness how our society views women and how this has serious consequence for women. I found her comments on pornography particularly valuable for me as I have never thought much about pornography other than child pornography.
Irene
Oct 23, 2007 rated it liked it  ·  review of another edition
Not the best of her books, this collection of essays and speeches is vehement and impassioned, though extremely repetitive. I would recommend viewing this book as a supplement to her other work if one is a fan of her style; 'Mercy' or 'Intercourse' or 'Pornography' or 'Heartbreak' are all better and more deeply provoking.
Sarah
May 28, 2011 rated it it was amazing
This book had an excellent and nuanced look at the treatment of women on all socioeconomic and racial levels in Western society. For the longest time, I didn't read Dworkin because of what I thought she'd said. I was wrong.
Lindsay
This book is more a collection of short essays and speeches than a cohesive whole. Each piece still has the intensity and moral clarity I've come to expect from Dworkin, but they feel transient and off-the-cuff; topical rather than profound.
Lost_Clown
Jul 05, 2007 rated it really liked it
Shelves: feminist, nonfiction
powerfully moving stories.
Cherie
Dec 06, 2007 added it
Shelves: non-fiction
C- I think it's up to every feminist to read Dworkin to see what she's about. I don't agree with her but some stuff she says is powerful.
Amy Layton
Oct 07, 2019 rated it it was amazing
Shelves: feminism, nonfiction
Andrea Dworkin's writings truly only get better with age.  She's opened up a lot in this anthology, discussing her childhood, parents, her abusive husband, and her homelessness.  She takes her experiences and juxtaposes them against those of Nicole Brown Simpson and Heda Nussbaum, offering a startling look at how often women can ask for help and be denied it, and how often others are surprised at their murder, rape, or defamation afterwards.  

Where her other books--even other antholo
...more
Annie
Nov 12, 2018 rated it liked it
(Read for use in a term paper)

Dworkin is . . . not my favourite feminist author. I am decidedly pro-sex workers’ rights, and Dworkin is not, but I take her arguments and they are thoughtful and well-meaning.

Dworkin as a person sometimes gets on my nerves. She’s the opposite of humble and she’s so critical of others in a way she just isn’t of herself.

But I admire her unbreakable spirit, her zeal, her powerfully articulated arguments. I like to engage with them even when I
...more
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Andrea Rita Dworkin was an American radical feminist and writer best known for her criticism of pornography, which she argued was linked to rape and other forms of violence against women.

An anti-war activist and anarchist in the late 1960s, Dworkin wrote 10 books on radical feminist theory and practice. During the late 1970s and the 1980s, she gained national fame as a spokeswoman for
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