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Margaret Sanger: A Life Of Passion (2011)

by Jean H. Baker(Favorite Author)

3.44 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0809094983 (ISBN13: 9780809094981)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Hill and Wang

review 1: A most readable biography of the birth control crusader, Margaret Sanger. It describes very well her life, her family and her single-mindedness in espousing the cause to allow women to control their pregnancies. She brought this to the forefront of America’s consciousness and later expanded it to the entire globe, when she traveled to Japan, India, England and many other locations.I used the term “crusade” above deliberately because “birth control”, as the author vividly depicts, was at the forefront of Margaret Sanger’s life taking precedence over all else – husbands’ (she was married twice), children, extended family and friends. In essence she was married to “birth control”.The book recounts all the obstacles Margaret Sanger had to overcome and also ... morethe territoriality of the different groups struggling for the emancipation of women in the early 1900’s. When one contrasts the battle to give women the right to vote, which is now “etched in stone” (would a sane candidate for political office today run on a platform to deny women the right to vote!); versus the right of women to control their bodies which is going on to this very day – where various right-wing groups are constantly trying and succeeding in whittling away the rights of women to have needed access to birth control and abortion; we sadly realize that Margaret Sanger’s fight, that began almost one hundred years ago, is not yet over. More Margaret Sanger’s are required to continue the battle for woman to control their pregnancies.This is an excellent biography that presents, not a saintly Margaret Sanger, but a human being obsessed with her worthy cause and saw it too much as a panacea resolving all of societies problems.
review 2: Margaret Sanger was definitely a fascinating woman to whom all of us committed to feminist issues and woman’s rights owe a great debt. I only wish this biography of her had been as riveting as her actual life story. I read a review of this biography by an author whom I respect, and she commented that she felt the lack of analysis of the impact of Sanger’s life and the context in which she lived (for example, Sanger’s support of the eugenics movement). This biography was definitely in the this-happened-and-then-this-happened-and-then-this-happened style. I might not recommend it as a person’s first choice in reading about Sanger; I have heard that Ellen Chesler’s biography has more of the contextual analysis I might have preferred. less

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