Was she a selfless political activist? A feminist heroine? A gifted
writer who rose from poverty to become a leading journalist and
author of the cult classic Daughter of Earth? A spy for the Soviet
Union? Or all of these things?
Drawing on fifteen years of intensive research and unprecedented
access to previously unpublished documents, this vibrant book
brings to life one of the twentieth century's most fascinating
women. Ruth Price traces Agnes Smedley's unlikely trajectory from a
small Missouri town to the coal country of Colorado; to Berkeley
and Greenwich Village; to Berlin, Moscow, and China. Fueled by a
fury at injustice, Smedley threw herself headlong into the crucial
issues of the time, from Indian independence to birth control,
women's rights, and the revolution in China. Her friends included
such figures as Margaret Sanger, Langston Hughes, Emma Goldman,
Jawaharlal Nehru, Mao Zedong, and many others. Perhaps most
important, Price uncovers an astonishing truth: Smedley, long
thought to be the unfair target of a Cold War smear campaign, was
indeed guilty of the espionage charges leveled against her by
General Douglas MacArthur and others. Smedley worked to foment
armed revolution in India and gathered intelligence for the Soviet
Union, seeing it as a bulwark against fascism. Price argues that
Smedley acted out of a passionate idealism and that she exhibited a
courage and compassion worthy of a renewed, if more complicated,
admiration today.
Epic in scope, painstakingly researched, and unflinchingly honest,
The Lives of Agnes Smedley offers a stunning reappraisal of one of
America's most controversial Leftists and a new look at the
troubled historical terrain of the first half of the twentieth
century.
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