[Anarchist] Emma Goldman claimed to abhor violence, and yet her speeches and writings are full of sympathetic odes to killers and would-be killers. Czolgozs [assassin of President William McKinley] included. I'm more of a Ten Commandments, rule of law girl myself. The closest I've ever come to anarchy is buying a Sex Pistols record. I find Goldman fascinating, but bothersome. (Especially her blase recounting of being Berkman's accomplice in shooting Frick.) While her apologies for violence were loathsome and her utopian hooey about life without government childish, her book's description of making friends with her fellow anarchists in New York is enchanting. Which is why her guilty assumption that Czolgosz would have been hurt by the the anarchist paper's warning - page 309 in my copy - is so poignant. The three hundred preceding pages are crammed with anecdotes and evidence of her entanglements and camaraderie.
Vowell's fascination with three assassinated presidents -- Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley -- leads to this delightful, thought-provoking book daring us to compare the crap in our times to the crap that has gone on before. Clearly, no one has learned from history, not even the historians.
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