A review by karlzz
Red Rosa: A Graphic Biography of Rosa Luxemburg by Kate Evans

4.0

Previous to reading this, I had not engaged with any of Rosa Luxemburg's work or known about how significant she is. The combination of the illustrations, historical contextualization of her work, and excerpts of her writing has me feeling very inspired to learn more about her and those she has influenced in socialist thought and practice. I would recommend this to anyone who has a difficult time engaging with dense theoretical texts but is still interested in socialist theory. I would have rated the book 5 stars if it were not for my this complaint - I was surprised to learn that Rosa Luxemburg was a disabled woman and the authors referenced that fact in a way that felt enabling of stigma. It was framed as something that she overcame rather than something that clearly influenced her perspective as she grew up and witnessed the inequality that surrounded her. I would love to see a greater effort of mainstream publications to forge a lineage of disabled people who have had profound influence on the masses.