Anarchism and Other Essays

Anarchism and Other Essays is a collection of essays by the anarchist activist Emma Goldman, published in 1910. It was her first book, and it gathers texts that began as lectures she delivered on fundraising tours across the United States to support her journal Mother Earth. Goldman was growing frustrated with the format of large public lectures, since she believed many listeners came for the spectacle of a controversial anarchist speaker rather than for the content of her talks. She preferred to reach fewer readers who genuinely wanted to learn. She completed the manuscript on a farm in Ossining, New York, while recovering from knee injuries, a process that took two months. Alexander Berkman edited the final proofs. When publishers showed no interest, the book was issued through the printers of Mother Earth.

The collection sets out Goldman's anarchist views on many subjects: what anarchism really stands for, political violence, prisons as a social crime, patriotism, free education through the case of Francisco Ferrer, the hypocrisy of puritanism, the traffic in women, woman suffrage, marriage and love, and drama as a vehicle for radical ideas. Its most studied piece by feminist scholars is "The Traffic in Women", which questions the economic and moral dependence that underpins marriage and prostitution. It also includes a short biographical sketch of Goldman by Hippolyte Havel.

Critics of the time praised the volume overall, though they faulted Goldman for refusing to condemn political violence. Editors of the International Socialist Review considered the title essay exaggerated but found the other pieces more valuable. Over the following century, the essay on the traffic in women has been cited in feminist debates on marriage, sexuality and prostitution, and scholars such as Lori Jo Marso have highlighted its contribution to discussions of the tensions between sexuality, love and feminist politics.