Like feminism, this book was a collective endeavor. I want to thank Tariq Ali, first and foremost, for conceiving of this book as a fitting contribution for Verso’s fiftieth anniversary year and for his commitment to the project. Over the past year my inbox was full of messages from Tariq that stand testament to his capacious interests and expansive knowledge—from the Japanese female samurai to Pakistani women’s movements, from the libertine poetry of the Persian courts to contemporary manifestos from women activists in Afghanistan.
This book would have been impossible without the team of co-editors working alongside me. From this project’s inception, Rosie Warren lent her committed sense of revolutionary feminism and her pragmatic approach to the project, as well as her extensive knowledge of left theory and struggle. I have relied on her advice, good humor, and sense of purpose throughout. Two talented editorial assistants—Charlotte Heltai and Sophia Giovannitti—assisted in the labor of this book, combing through libraries and archives with me, assisting in permissions requests and writing introductions, and lending their knowledge of the ancient Middle East and Classical world (Charlotte) and trans and queer feminism (Sophia) to the project. Working with these women was a joy.
Of course, this book would also not exist without my colleagues at Verso. This book draws its format and quite a few of its extracts from The Verso Book of Dissent, edited for Verso by Audrea Lim and Andy Hsiao, both of whom were essential in guiding me through the work of this book, as well as helping connect me to Indigenous and Asian American writers and activists. Ben Mabie talked through the scope and scale of feminism with me and lent his deep knowledge of the black radical tradition to this project. Sebastian Budgen drew from his near-exhaustive understanding of revolutionary communism and socialism around the world to suggest sources. Jacob Stevens and Rowan Wilson guided the project through the house, while Bob Bhamra, Mark Martin, and Duncan Ranslem made the book’s design and printing possible. I am also grateful to my colleagues in marketing and publicity who will do the hard labor of bringing this book into the world: Anne Rumberger, Jennifer Tighe, Catherine Smiles, Maya Osborne, Julia Judge, and Natascha Elena Uhlmann.
Special thanks are also due to the editors of previous volumes: Michelle O’Brien, whose reader on revolutionary feminism for the Communist Research Cluster was an inspiration and necessary resource for this project; Breanne Fahs, whose collection of feminist manifestos, Burn It Down!, was likewise a lodestar and crucial source; all the editors of the Women Writing Africa multivolume series (especially Fatima Sadiqi), who have compiled one of the most extraordinary resources we came across in our research for this book; Mindy Seu, whose Cyberfeminism Catalogue is a xenofeminist’s dream; and Estelle B. Freedman’s The Essential Feminist Reader, which was a guide for how one might go about such a vast and unwieldy historical project.
Several friends and colleagues served as specialists for whole areas of the world: Genevieve Carlton put her knowledge of medieval and early modern Europe and her eye for telling and humorous detail to work for this project; Camila Valle helped to represent the scope and scale of Latin American feminism for this book, and she also translated many new sources for me from the Spanish; Nimmi Gowrinathan connected me to a range of Tamil and South Asian poets and feminist scholars; Charlotte Sheedy, whose stewardship of feminist writers has made so much possible; and the Feminist Press in New York City that brought to press (and kept in print) a significant portion of the words you see here, and whose gracious solidarity in supporting this endeavor was a gift. Most of all, Matt Sandler and the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University offered me a visiting scholar position so I might use the full resources of Columbia and Barnard’s library systems for this work. To the staff of Barnard College Library, who have amassed one of the best collections of feminist scholarship and history I have ever consulted: I owe you a great debt. I also owe one to Matt, who kindly allowed his office to be a way station for more bags of library books than I care to count—an act he wryly termed a kind of reparations due from a university that did not admit women until 1982.
Beyond this, I have called on generous friends, colleagues, scholars, and activists for their expertise, and it’s a pleasure to thank them here: Magally A. Miranda Alcázar, Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, Tani Barlow, Tithi Bhattacharya, Karina Bolasco, Becca Bor, Beverly Bossler, Kathleen M. Brown, Cathy Cahill, Liz Connor, Róisín Davis, Hasia Diner (who was extremely generous with her knowledge of Jewish women’s history, and helped me think through this book’s scope), Nick Estes, Silvia Federici, Johanna Fernández, Leta Hong Fincher, Kristin Ghodsee, David Boarder Giles, Linda Gordon and Phineas Baxandall, Dayo Gore, Mira Green, Gail Hershatter, Faith Hillis, Sarah Jaffe, Emily Janakiram, Meena Kandasamy, Rebecca E. Karl, Monica Kim, Suzy Kim, Diana King, Michael Koncewicz at Tamiment Library (who let me handle a rifle used to fight fascists in the Spanish Civil War while he pulled Beulah Richardson’s poetry for me from the archive), Nina Lakhani, Vina Lanzona, Sarah Leonard, Simeon Man, Amy McGuire, Marissa Moorman, Hwasook Nam, Mairin Odle, Lizzie O’Shea, Gayatri Patnaik and Beacon Press, Catherine Porter (who offered us her new translation of Alexandra Kollontai’s work), Lü Pin, Vicente Rafael, Redstockings, Nedra Rodrigo, Ninotchka Rosca, Mary Ethel Skinner, Ann Snitow and Vivian Gornick (who discussed the ambition of this book with me in one of the most illuminating afternoon teas I have ever had), Christina Snyder, Seema Sohi, David Stein, Neferti Tadiar, Ula Taylor, Lynn Thomas, Lisa Tofel, Dao X. Tran, Aili Mari Tripp, Natascha Elena Uhlmann, and Erik Wallenberg.
I also want to thank all of the publishers and translators listed in the sources section, as well as permissions staff on two continents—especially Yi Deng at Columbia University Press, Peter London at HarperCollins, Allison Jakobovic at Penguin Random House, and Annette Day and Diana Taylor at Taylor & Francis—for their work and assistance.
Finally, I thank the authors and translators themselves. The goodwill and enthusiasm of the contemporary writers for this project, and their willingness to lend me their words, speaks, I hope, to the strength of feminism’s past and present as well as the potential of what is to come.