Against War
Virginia Woolf's Three Guineas is more obviously a polemic against war than her classic Room of One's Own, but it brilliantly interweaves the author's opposition to war with feminism, and shows how patriarchy curtails women's capacity to be truly demonstrate independence of mind. Realpolitik would argue that Woolf is naively utopian, but there need to be thinkers who articulate the visionary position--and Woolf was one of them. It is somewhat troubling to consider what she would have proposed to counter the Nazi threat, but the essay sadly still has currency today. Consider as well her condemnation of the "fact-purveyors" who "prostitute culture." She was critiquing media in the 1930s. Genius isn't a word that should be bandied about lightly, but the word obviously applied to Virginia Woolf.