Rosa Luxemburg: A life

A biography of Rosa Luxemburg praised by Doris Kearns Goodwin and Susan Sontag. Read more Continue reading Read less FROM PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A founding member of both the Polish and German Communist parties, yet an outspoken believer in democracy and an agitator who disagreed with Lenin, Luxemburg in recent years has become a heroine of the political left. This short biography sympathetically describes her personal and public life as a middle-class Jewish outsider, crippled from childhood, her numerous writings and several love affairs. Brilliant and courageous, yet inflexible, intolerant and uncompromising, she was also insecure, romantic and sentimental. She was often imprisoned for her radical views and activities. Luxemburg tried to establish a proletarian government in Germany, but she and her associates were murdered by reactionary soldiers shortly after the armistice. Ettinger's intimate book does not replace Peter Nettl's standard, more comprehensive biography of 1966. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. FROM LIBRARY JOURNAL
Ettinger provides a personal, well-written portrait of Luxemburg. Her study does not attempt either a comprehensive analysis of Luxemburg's political writings, or a "definitive" biography of the famed international socialist. Instead, Ettinger explores emotional roots, Luxemburg's Polish-Jewish origins in Zamosc and Warsaw, and her relationship with Leo Jogiches, the great love of her life, with whom she lived in common-law marriage for 15 years. One must read this as a complement to J.P. Nettl's two-volume biography of Luxemburg (1966) . It draws a vibrant picture of the woman, essential to an understanding of the revolutionary. Occasional excesses in tone do not weaken the essential value of the work. Recommended for college and large public libraries. Sheila R. Herstein, City Coll. of CUNY Lib.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. Read more Continue reading Read less