The New Republic recently praised Louise W. Knight’s Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy. From the review by Christine Stansell: "Louise W. Knight’s excellent book makes the case for Addams as a pre-eminent social thinker and a masterful politician.… Knight brings alive the sheer pleasure of [Hull House].… While preserving Addams’s essential modesty, Knight is still able to show what a powerful operator she was becoming.… One hopes for a second volume of Knight’s fine work."
This masterful biography explores how Addams was born to one life and chose another. Though raised in a small town, Addams was driven to become a pioneer in urban reform, working through the Hull House—which she co-founded—in Chicago and beyond as a leader in labor relations and an advocate for children, immigrants, and the poor. And though she was the product of a highly class-conscious and morally absolutist family and culture, she developed into one of our nation’s foremost pragmatic ethicists, on a par with Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and her good friend John Dewey.
Read an excerpt.
Visit Louise W. Knight’s Citizen Web site.