Abstract

Sylvia Pankhurst was a tireless activist for a variety of radical causes, including women's suffrage, labour movements and international solidarity campaigns. She made pioneering contributions to gender and class politics, revolutionary communist politics and the struggles against imperialism, racism and fascism. In addition, Pankhurst founded and edited four newspapers, and wrote and published twenty-two books, and numerous pamphlets and articles.

In this biography, Mary Davis provides a much-needed reappraisal of a woman whose contribution to a wide variety of causes is too often marginalised or overlooked, whether as the employer of the first black journalist in Britain - the activist and writer Claude McKay - or as an early campaigner for pan-Africanism. Pankhurst's changing affiliations and commitments - from her early suffragette activities, though her involvement with disenfranchised and impoverished women in London's East End, to her passionate embrace of the Soviet revolution, the cause of communism worldwide and the fight against imperialism and fascism - mirror the history of radical politics in the twentieth century.

Mary Davis's lucid and accessible account of Pankhurst's political life restores a remarkable woman to her rightful place in twentieth-century history.
'A convincing evaluation of Pankhurst's role in Marxist politics after 1918'
History Today
'This well researched book sheds new light on the life of a remarkable woman and is much to be recommended'
Labour Research
'Skilfully guides us through the maze of changing policies and the tactics in the suffrage movement, the early Labour and Communist parties and the anti-colonial struggles which characterised the political left of [Pankhurst's] time.'
Camden New Journal
'This book will be useful to those interested in the history of the interaction of socialism and feminism, and is a valuable addition to Pankhurst bibliography'
Peace News