a book
Three Guineas
Virginia Woolf · 1963 · 192 pages
"Though we see the same world, we see it through different eyes."
Setting out to answer the question "How are we to prevent war?" Virginia Woolf argues that the inequalities between women and men must first be addressed. Framing her arguments in the form of a letter, Woolf wittily ponders to whom--among the many who have requested it--she will donate a guinea. As she works out her reasons for which causes she will support, Woolf articulates a vision of peace and political culture as radical now as it was when first published on the eve of the Second World War. A founding text of cultural theory, Three Guineas can also help us understand the twenty-first-century realities of endless war justified by "unreal loyalties."
"Witty, scornful, deeply serious...If you are a woman, or anti-war, or both, read it."--The New Yorker
Setting out to answer the question "How are we to prevent war?" Virginia Woolf argues that the inequalities between women and men must first be addressed. Framing her arguments in the form of a letter, Woolf wittily ponders to whom--among the many who have requested it--she will donate a guinea. As she works out her reasons for which causes she will support, Woolf articulates a vision of peace and political culture as radical now as it was when first published on the eve of the Second World War. A founding text of cultural theory, Three Guineas can also help us understand the twenty-first-century realities of endless war justified by "unreal loyalties."
"Witty, scornful, deeply serious...If you are a woman, or anti-war, or both, read it."--The New Yorker
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sourced from public statements
Emma Thompson
“Woolf wrote this after receiving requests for one guinea from three charitable organizations. It’s largely about education—women’s education—and the fact that it really wasn’t believed in. Woolf’s position was that it was important, and that’s become central to feminist thinking. Reading the book gave me the feeling that higher education sometimes stifled questions, and that the best type of instruction makes you able to ask the right questions and to continue asking those questions for the rest of your life. Three Guineas led me to Noam Chomsky and others like him—you know, the great dissenters.”↗
