Based in feminist labor and social history, Jennifer Guglielmo's well-written study of Italian American women's radical organizing makes a significant contribution to our understanding of a key period of radical activity in the United States. In the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, a wave of radical activity swept across the globe, as workers rejected imperial authority and the reorganizing of labor under industrial capitalism. Although the history of anarchism in Europe is well established, its transnational migration and its importance to many groups in the United States have been largely understudied. Further, with the exception of Emma Goldman, Lucy Parsons, Rosa Luxemburg, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, few women have gained presence in studies of anarchism despite their substantial contributions. Guglielmo examines why this has been so, creating a rich portrait of the social networks that allowed Italian women immigrants to realize their radical potential in reinventing religion, education, labor, and intimate relationships while rejecting the authority of the state and the bourgeoisie. Guglielmo argues that these women have been overlooked because most historians of anarchism have focused on the more violent, male-dominated wing of Italian American anarchism and have neglected the more peaceful organizing activities where women held sway.

Guglielmo begins in Italy during the mass emigration beginning in the 1870s. When many men left for the United States, women's social networks were strengthened and they found new roles as laborers and wage earners. Like many workers, they were swept up in the anarchist movement, which was especially strong in Italy, and they were often at the forefront of political agitation and direct action. As they, too, immigrated to the United States, they brought this political foundation with them, making particular contributions to labor organizing in the garment industry. (Guglielmo includes a comparative discussion of Italian women's activism in Argentina and Brazil.) Of particular interest to labor historians will be Guglielmo's extensive discussion of Italian women's involvement in the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and their embrace of the Industrial Workers of the World over the more moderate American Federation of Labor.

Guglielmo's discussion of Italian women's contribution to an anarchist subculture and to the evolution of anarcha-feminism is especially valuable. Many women contributed ideas to La Questione Sociale, an organ of the radical Gruppo Diritto all'Esistenza, and figures like Maria Roda, Ninfa Baranio, and Ernestina Cravello articulated an anarcha-feminism that critiqued the production of luxury goods for the wealthy, labor exploitation, state-sanctioned marriage, and the Catholic Church, and promoted free love, pleasure, and individual spirituality. Women participated heavily in mutual-aid societies and organized anarchist schools and theatrical productions to spread anarchist ideas and create stronger bonds of community. In the end, Guglielmo explains, these anarchist activities stumbled during the heavy assault on labor activism during the Red Scare, and were largely abandoned as Italian Americans aspired to full citizenship, embracing whiteness and liberalism as the keys to social acceptance.

Guglielmo's book will be of great interest not only to radical and feminist historians, but to scholars interested in early twentieth-century race relations, transnational labor patterns, diasporic cultures, and the role of culture within social movements. Living the Revolution is a pathbreaking work that will hopefully inspire others to study the many overlooked dimensions of this critical period of transnational radicalism, including women's role in it.