PositiveFull StopTaking her early 1980s writing as its starting point, Ehrenreich’s Had I Known, published March 2020 by Twelve Books, draws upon her considerable register of previously published work and places these writings in fresh orbit ... Through all of them, though, there runs the red thread of her lived experience as a feminist and working-class stalwart. Thoughtfully selected and arranged, the chronological staggering of the texts in this volume underscores parallels across Ehrenreich’s more than three decades as a public intellectual and political commentator. At times the effect is sobering, reminding us just how far our social movements still have to go. At others, it is galvanizing, a testimony to the deep roots of movements for social change. In either case, the assembly unearths a novel, comparative viewpoint on her writing that foregrounds her political and literary development over the years ... Ehrenreich writes unsparingly of the recent failures of American unions to forestall the tide of advancing corporate greed—and throughout the entries in this volume, she reprises her call to the barricades.
