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dam Hochschild has a thing for rebels. So it will come as little surprise that
the 77-year-old’s latest book is a biography of Rose Pastor Stokes, who was
born in the Russian Empire in 1879, made her way to the United States,
married into money, and put her newfound resources toward fighting for
workers’ rights. In March, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will publish Rebel
Cinderella: From Rags to Riches to Radical, the Epic Journey of Rose Pastor Stokes.
The book, Hochschild’s ninth, marks his first straight biography. It comes after a
memoir (1986’s Half the Way Home, about his strained relationship with his father) and
a string of historical works. He’s best known for the latter—specifically the four histories
he’s written on movements for social justice. There’s his 1998 work about the early-20th-
century campaign to end slave labor in the Congo (King Leopold’s Ghost), his 2005 book
on the struggle to abolish slavery in the British Empire (Bury the Chains), his 2011
examination of the pacifist protests against WWI (To End All Wars), and his 2016 look
at American volunteer brigades fighting against fascism during the Spanish Civil War
(Spain in Our Hearts).
Sitting at his desk in the Berkeley, Calif., home he shares with his wife, Arlie Russell
Hochschild (a sociologist and fellow author), Hochschild says Rebel Cinderella is, in his mind,In his new biography,
Adam Hochschild
traces the life of Rose
Pastor Stokes, a feisty
20th-century activist
BY WENDY SMITH
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