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Sylvia Pankhurst’s revolutionary life
PAULINE BRYAN commends a new biography of the legendary women’s leader whose life included achieving suffrage, butting heads with Lenin as a Communist International delegate in Moscow and becoming a hero in Ethiopia's national struggle
Suffragette leader Sylvia Pankhurst leads the marchers outside the House of Commons in 1948 during protests against any proposal to return Eritrea and Somaliland to the Italians. They carried banners showing photographs of Italian soldiers performing atrocities

RACHEL HOLMES has already written about some remarkable women including Eleanor Marx. This biography of Sylvia Pankhurst has the detail that will satisfy both the serious student and those just wanting an enjoyable read.

It is long, with over 900 pages. But such a big life deserves a big book, especially when it is written with political understanding and tremendous sympathy for women in politics.

Central to Pankhurst’s politics was a commitment to working-class struggle.

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