Rosa Luxemburg

From today’s perspective, it is not unreasonable to suggest – as Dana Mills does in Rosa Luxemburg, a compact and admiring biography – that she is a potential role model to the woke generation, an icon to the feminist, environmental, equality and anticolonialist rebellions. Luxemburg is alive and well and speaking at a street meeting near you . . . [Mills] sees “the energy, resilience and humanism of Rosa Luxemburg re-emerging as a counter-force” in our times . . . Luxemburg deserves better than past categorizations. She was a unique revolutionary, self-made and self-critical, seductive and humane. You will meet the real Rosa here, and it’s a pleasure. * Norman Lebrecht, Wall Street Journal *
Mills brings Rosa Luxemburg to life, exploring her revolutionary thinking and writing, all while helping the reader get to know Red Rosa, who always took brisk walks, loved reading Goethe’s Faust, regularly corresponded with V. I. Lenin, and continually worked towards an open and just future. * New Books Network *
Can there be anything new to say about Rosa Luxemburg? In this passionate, fast-moving and yet scholarly account Dana Mills shows us that there is. * Jewish Socialist magazine *
In these days when NGO politics so looms over the left, the recall to the spirit and approach of an activist from the heroic days of the Marxist movement is refreshing . . . [a] warm and sprightly book. * Workers' Liberty *
[Mills presents] us right from the first pages with a Rosa Luxemburg that the reader wants to sit down and talk with. * Katherine Connelly, Monthly Review *
I was utterly transported by the drama and urgency of Luxemburg’s life, and the precarity of the world in which she lived and died . . . A polemic, divisive, and contradictory figure, the Rosa Luxemburg with which Mills presents us is ultimately a unifier, a whole and generous soul; her beliefs and pursuits cohered around a radical empathy and a willingness to give her life to the cause of universal justice. Regardless of how we feel about the specifics of her socialist politics, we can all take inspiration from her courage. The letter found in her handbag on the night of her assassination, addressed to lifelong friend Clara Zetkin, asserted: “One has to take history as it comes, whatever course it takes." * Women's Review of Books *
a growing literature on the effects of the many sources of subjection and domination upon the lives of individuals, especially women, has found in Rosa Luxemburg a compelling case study. Here was a someone trying to make her way within the veritable swamp of social prejudices that was the Germany of her day – she was woman, she was Jewish, she was Polish, she was an outspoken pacifist, she was a challenging intellect, her mobility and physical appearance were permanently impaired as a consequence of what was likely to have been an episode of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, and she was a revolutionist. It is a measure of Dana Mills’ achievement that she has managed to give life and colour to all of these aspects of this remarkable thinker. * Contributions to Political Economy *
for some time the field has needed a succinct, but also thorough, biography designed to introduce Luxemburg to twenty-first century readers. Dana Mills’ new book meets that need . . . Mills’ biography is an overall success. As her closing chapter makes clear, Luxemburg’s legacy remains a powerful one that continues to draw the interest of scholars and is claimed by activists in a variety of arenas. This book will help a new generation of readers to join the discussion. * Marx and Philosophy Review of Books *
The book is about both Luxemburg’s personal life and her political and economic ideas . . . an interesting and informative read. * Socialist Standard *
Vibrant, meticulous and well-reasoned – at last we have, with Dana Mills’s new book, an English-language biography of Rosa Luxemburg which does credit to the life and work of its subject, one of the greatest economic and political minds of the twentieth century. * Kate Evans, author of Red Rosa *
Dana Mills’ Rosa Luxemburg provides an impressive overview of Luxemburg’s life and work from a feminist standpoint – a task made newly relevant by the emergence of a new generation of activists and theorists in today’s movements for social justice and against racism, sexism, and imperialism. * Peter Hudis, Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Oakland Community College and General Editor of The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg *