Rosa Luxemburg (Critical Lives)

As an economist and political theorist, Rosa Luxemburg created a body of work that still resonates powerfully today. Born in Poland in 1871, she became a revolutionary leader in Berlin, publishing works including ‘Reform or Revolution’ and The Accumulation of Capital. In this account of her short yet extraordinary life, Dana Mills examines Luxemburg’s writings, including her own correspondence, to reveal a woman who was fierce in professional battles and loving in personal relationships. What is her legacy today, a hundred years after her assassination in Berlin in 1919 at the age of 47? Luxemburg’s emphasis on humanity, equality and her insistence on revolution gave coherence, as this compelling biography illustrates, to a fraught life story and a colossal economic and political legacy.