Jean Freedman’s biography of Peggy Seeger positions the musician at the centre of the twentieth-century folk music revival, showing how she worked against stereotypes about fighting “as a woman” (p. 192)—a line from her famous song “I’m Gonna Be an Engineer”—and used her music as a tool to advocate for social causes. Through the lens of Peggy Seeger’s life, Freedman effectively re-examines many of the assumptions of the folk revival and reconciles the fact that Seeger’s role in folk music has been overlooked by scholars for far too long.

Freedman’s account incorporates a vast number of sources—including archival sources and over one hundred recordings—but one of the most unique elements of this research is her personal acquaintance with her subject. She draws on interviews with Seeger and her children as well as Seeger’s private papers. The resulting account paints a vibrant portrait of Seeger’s life and circle. Beginning with her life as the child of two prominent composers and folk music specialists (Charles Seeger and Ruth Crawford Seeger), chapters 1–5 provide insight into the love shared within the Seeger family. These chapters also pay special attention to Seeger’s musical upbringing, which formed the basis for the first album she recorded as a student at Radcliffe College.

Equally important to understanding Seeger’s circle is the mix of professional-turned-romantic relationships in her life. Indeed, her parents’ relationship started as a professional one, and a significant portion of the biography (chapters 6–16) focuses on Seeger’s own musical and personal relationship with the actor, singer, songwriter, and activist Ewan McColl. The couple collaborated on multiple albums and a series of “radio ballads” that informed the public of working-class issues, and this account frames Seeger’s personal interactions with McColl as critical to her outlook on political songwriting. The final segment of the book (chapters 16–20) shows Seeger’s increased involvement in feminist politics and her new relationship with fellow activist Irene Pyper-Scott. Through all of this detail about her private life, Freedman never loses sight of Seeger’s output as a songwriter and performer, and anecdotes form useful context for understanding Seeger’s musical life.

Freedman’s work is of great interest to scholars of folk music, especially because Peggy Seeger factors as only a peripheral figure in literature on the folk revival by Ronald Cohen, Rachel Clare Donaldson, and Robert Cantwell, and in the biographies about her siblings by David King Dunaway and Bill C. Malone. Ultimately, one of the reasons that Peggy Seeger’s voice has been dwarfed by her male siblings is because of her gender, not her lack of significance. This work addresses many of the ways that gender factored in Seeger’s life as a musician, including how she subverted societal expectations as a working mother and musician and her feminist activism—narratives that put the classic story of the folk revival in new focus.

Another notable difference in Freedman’s approach is the way that she uses Seeger’s career to offer a transnational perspective of the folk revival. Raised on American versions of traditional English songs, Seeger brought her interpretations of famous tunes back to England and engaged in century-long debates about ownership, appropriation, and authenticity in London’s folk scene. Freedman additionally shows how living in England allowed Seeger to navigate her leftist affiliations differently fromher family members in the United States. The view of the folk revival even extends beyond the transatlantic conversations about Anglo-Saxon ballads, as Seeger absorbed other ideas of leftist politics and traditional music when she travelled to the Soviet Union and China during the Cold War, against the advice of the United States government (chapter 7).

A broader audience of (ethno)musicologists may also take interest in the way that this biography traces developments within the discipline of musicology itself. Ann M. Pescatello’s biography of Charles Seeger (Reference Pescatello1992) and Judith Tick’s account of Ruth Crawford’s life (Reference Tick1997) attest to the fact that musicologists have already used this family to show the web of influence between modernist composers and the foundations of the discipline. Peggy Seeger’s story likewise shows how debates about the role of politics in folk music (chapter 10) and about the place of newly composed songs in folk revivals (chapter 21) have each influenced the historiography of folk music.

With its wide array of sources and its insider perspective, Peggy Seeger: A Life in Music, Love, and Politics provides a much-needed account of a prominent woman in the folk revival. By including Peggy Seeger’s voice in this history, Freedman deepens our understanding of this rich tradition.