Andrea Dworkin: The Feminist as Revolutionary - Hardcover

by Martin Duberman (Author)

From one of America's leading biographers, the definitive story of the radical feminist and anti-pornography activist, based on exclusive access to her archives

Fifteen years after her death, Andrea Dworkin remains one of the most important and challenging figures in second-wave feminism. Although frequently relegated to its more radical fringes, Dworkin was without doubt a formidable and influential writer, a philosopher, and an activist--a brilliant figure who inspired and infuriated in equal measure. Her many detractors were eager to reduce her to the caricature of the angry, man-hating feminist who believed that all sex was rape, and as a result, her work has long been misunderstood. It is in recent years, especially with the rise of the #MeToo movement, that there has been a resurgence of interest in her ideas.

This biography is the perfect complement to the widely reviewed anthology of her writing, Last Days at Hot Slit, published in 2019, providing much-needed context to her work. Given exclusive access to never-before-published photographs and archives, including her letters to many of the major figures of second-wave feminism, award-winning biographer Martin Duberman traces Dworkin's life, from her abusive first marriage through her central role in the sex and pornography wars of the following decades. This is a vital, complex, and long overdue reassessment of the life and work of one of the towering figures of second-wave feminism.

Author Biography

Martin Duberman is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the CUNY Graduate Center, where he founded and for a decade directed the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies. The author of more than twenty books--including Radical Acts, Waiting to Land, A Saving Remnant, Howard Zinn, The Martin Duberman Reader, Hold Tight Gently, and Paul Robeson: No One Can Silence Me (for young adults)--Duberman has won a Bancroft Prize and been a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. He lives in New York City.