Red Rosa: A Graphic Biography of Rosa Luxemburg

I end up reading a fair number of graphic novels. The thing is that I normally just grab them from the library because I hate paying what is a higher price for a book that I will read much faster than a normal book. It makes my dollar per entertainment hour ratio increase and I’m sure that’s how most normal humans judge if they should buy a book. I am, however, glad that I purchased this book, because I can support my favorite radical publisher (Sorry, Haymarket) and I have a book I can pass along to like-minded friends – a book that most likely would not have been in my library anyways.And it’s a good book. Before reading Red Rosa, I was only vaguely aware of her as the writer of Reform or Revolution and the General Strike. I also knew that she was a martyr to the cause of worldwide socialism. What I didn’t realize was that she had to fight her own party to not just go along with the bourgeois parties, like for example voting to a man (and they were all men) for entry into WWI, and instead work towards the last lines in the manifesto – “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working Men of All Countries, Unite!” It is these lines that illuminated and drove her life from a precocious young woman in Poland to a death before her time. Well worth reading for both history and inspiration.

The book is no substitute on the writings of Rosa Luxemburg, but does a great job bringing the person to life. This graphic novel serves as a good introduction to the revolutionary's life and the problems she encountered. It does not do much in the way of helping the reader understand the philosophy of Luxemburg, but does touch base many times. Highly recommend it to anyone who is consuming leftist theory as a break from some of the more dry reading you can encounter

Really well written story that effectively communicates about a beautiful complicated life and really complex ideas about political and economic systems! New concept for me: capitalism operates exploiting labor and resources (currently in 3rd world countries aka is dependent on imperialism to continue to appear successful) and all other professions are parasitic to this relationship. Also note this is an adult graphic novel with graphic depictations of sexuality. Not offensive but be aware.

Kate Evans has written a surprisingly deep and moving account of Rosa Luxemburg's life that reveals both the depths of her poetic soul and humanity as well as the theoretical intricacies of Marxism. One learns the essence of use-value and market-value as well as their incompatibility; and a great deal about the history of the German revolution of 1918-1919. Luxemburg is also prophetic about the nature of capitalism's need to transform the entire world into its own image and she and Lenin were of the same mind in seeing Imperialism as the highest form of capitalism. Unlike many Marxists, Rosa saw that there was no inevitability to the revolution but that it depended entirely upon mobilizing contingent forces, the difficulty or impossibility of doing which history has demonstrated.

Amazing comic book... despite the depth of it's theme, it's a tender book, about a woman with vision and attittude, trying to change the world she lived in. Kate Evans research shows through the book, as she can explain Rosa's ideas and their contexts in a way we can understand and reflect about them.As I was reading this graphic novel, I was also studiyng Economics, and it was a rich counterpoint to the Economic Liberal point of view - one must build a rich land and our entrepeneurs do it quite well, but we shall never forget that everyone should be able to have a fair share of these riches and live their lifes with dignity.

Kate Evans has composed a zesty cartoon rendition of the remarkable Marxist theorist and activist Rosa Luxemburg whose life was cut short by assassination in 1919, but please keep in mind that she takes some liberties with the truth, as I learned when I read her page-by-page notes at the end. Some people are composite characters, which I found annoying. On the bright, unexpected side, Evans is fascinated by Rosa's love life, and you will be, too.

Rosa is the best. The art style needs some getting used to, but once you're in it's a tour-dr-force. It succinctly brings together a biography, summary, and selected works (the excerpts in the back are comprehensive). It puts an admirable, human face on all of the great theory picked up in works like 'Reform or Revolution,' explaining who she was and why she wrote what she did at the various points in her life.

This is a gem of a graphic novel which is utterly unapologetic about the ideals of revolution of the Jewish identity of the main character herself. Worth your time.

Vibrantly strong portrait of an astonishing life-force - with many striking images. This is a marvellously readable and well-researched graphic biography of one of the most astonishing women who came to prominence in the 20th century. Rosa Luxemburg was born in 1871 with many disabilities: Jewish; in a Poland colonised by Russia; female; and crippled in one leg. Yet she rose to become an extremely potent force in the fledgling Social Democratic and later Socialist International movements, was a founding member of the radical Spartacus League and was, at the end of her life, the last hope of the purist strand of German communism in the aftermath of World War One.Rosa Luxemburg was tirelessly - indeed exhaustingly - free-thinking and convinced of her own righteousness. She dared to take on pretty much all of the conventions of her era. As well as politically radical, she was a powerful public speaker (at a time when thiswas anathema for women); she took a series of lovers; she wrote poetically passionate and self-illumining letters; she was an avowed atheist (though her father was a rabbi); and she dared to write critically of Marx, filling in some gaps in his theories. Her outspoken attacks on capitalism and militarism in the years running up to, and during, the First World War led to a series of short terms of imprisonment. It is striking, however, that she was able to continue to write and communicate with the outside world most of the time she was in jail and was not ill-treated (until the end).One striking incident amongst many stands as an example of her volcanic, brave and determined character: once, she was freed early from jail as part of an amnesty to mark the coronation of a German princeling, but she refused and had to be dragged out of prison protesting against being freed for such a trivial, imperialist occasion.This graphic biography does justice to a remarkable person, though, for me, there is too much verbatim political ideology, sometimes continuing over four or five pages. Luxemburg was a fluent political thinker and writer, albeit only in the Marxist domain. She contributed to Marxist thinking by showing how imperialism is a natural outgrowth of capitalism (though Soviet Russia was also imperialist). However, her passionate but unthinking commitment to 'revolution' was bereft of realistic ideas about what happened after the revolution, and rested (like Marxism) on wishful, ill-formed thinking about how 'representatives' of the 'masses' would infallibly guide events, failing to see that working class people are people, first and foremost, with human needs and failings, long before they are working class. She also idolised the pre-capitalist peasant society of Poland and Germany, believing that it constituted a Utopian world of self-sufficiency without market-trading - or indeed, without oppressive landowners and warlords. Ironically, like her capitalist intellectual enemies, she could only really see people as economic agents.Nevertheless, Luxemburg was consistently anti-war, even when almost the whole of her party voted to support the German declaration of war in 1914, and she was always revolted by violence. In the end, she was a victim of her massive idealism, and was brutally arrested and executed by Social Democrat henchmen. Read this fascinating and imaginative graphic novel to learn more.

I never really encountered graphic novels until I started to pick up these books in France to improve my French, Across the Channel, graphic novels tend to verge between extremes of artistic masterpieces, topics which seem quite "worthy" and books which replicate the kind of comic adventures I might have read as a child in the 1970's. Kate Evans' book is one of the first English language graphic novels I have read, Rosa Luxembourg is a historical figure that I knew little about and I had previously bought a small SWP publication to satisfy my curiosity. This graphic novel does it's subject far better justice and is extremely lucid. This book works as a cartoon but, perhaps more importantly, it manages to tackle it's subject in a fashion that is at once easy to understand and also extremely balanced. That said, I finished this book coming to the conclusion that I had not only totally under-valued the contribution of Rosa Luxembourg but convinced me that she was probably the most important female political figure of the 20th century.I would ignore the comment about this book being pornographic (there is nudity in the book but this is a given in the French equivalents!) and there is no bad language. The only criticism is that Rosa is not depicted as being at all glamorous. Other than that, the fact that Luxembourg's own works are notoriously heavy going and the alternatives seem to be written in foreign languages, this is the "go to" book on the subject. That statement underestimates just how good this book is. It is a very enjoyable read, extremely informative and extremely thought provoking. Some of the more difficult aspects of her theories are clearly set out , not only in a manner which is easy to understand but often in a very creative fashion too. This book is a winner in so many respects. The juxtaposition of text and illustrations is little short of brilliant and Kate Evans has produced a book which will both answer all your questions and delight at the same time. This is not only the best English language graphic novel I have encountered but a scholarly piece of historical writing that offers some interesting ideas about her projections - a number of which seem to have already come to fruition. Quite simply, this is the best book I have read all year.

The art is poor and the storyline full of inconsistencies. The author also uses Rosa's own writing but gives no background as to many of the reasons and personal feelings and ideas or how they were developed. Large parts are plainly missing. Superficial hagiographic and boring. I would definitely pass on this one.

This is a fantastically well presented, drawn and written book. It was far better than I expected.The drawing is so imaginative and has a cheeky humour to it.I am far more aware of Rosa’ role in the history of that time thanks to this wonderful book.

An interesting read and original way of presenting it. Really enjoyed. Very easy to read.