Michelle Goldberg

I knew absolutely nothing of Indra Devi until I heard about this book, which I went out to buy and then it sat on my shelf for ages. I knew that yoga in India as opposed to what happens in the West and particularly the US are not the same but I learned a great deal more from this egrossing biography. Devi herself seems a bit of a nightmare for a biographer but I was fascinated by all the strange twists and turns in her life, starting in Riga and crossing the world many times over. She seems show more to have been a master of reinvention and created whatever persona she most need at the time. She also seems to have been both an inspiration and a nightmare to those around her. I enjoyed learned about her and what her voyage was through life. I would suggest that not only she brought yoga to the West but it seems a shame is is somewhat forgotten while other names (mostly Indian men) linger. I was also fascinated by her connect to early Bollywood. I have wondered if both my love of Bollywood (and BollyX teaching) and my small yoga practice are just cultural appropriation with a dose of white privilege but I think I see it a bit differently now. Appreciation doesn't have to be appropriation and I see the difference playing out with Indra Devi. show less

A thoroughly researched and highly informative look at the subjects of contraception, abortion, and women's reproductive rights on the global stage, and most particularly in the developing world. These issues, it turns out, are much more complex than the basic fundamentalists vs. liberals narrative that those of us here in the US tend to buy into, involving all kinds of tangled religious, cultural and political factors. Michelle Goldberg navigates us through all of them, and while her own show more emphatically pro-choice stance on the matter is clear, she never descends to the level of a political shouting match, instead keeping her prose calm and measured even when discussing things that I personally would have trouble not getting ranty about. In the end, she makes a very cogent and persuasive argument that, despite all obstacles, increasing freedoms for women is very much a win-win approach, rather than a choice between individual rights and the greater social good. show less

This book was a very interesting take on the international woman's right's movement. Most books I've read have focused the struggle on the US, but this book really brings into view the larger picture.

Goldberg starts by going into the history of the global reproductive rights movement, which really grew out of a desire to stem population growth back in the 1950s. The US was actually a large proponent of helping other countries to better plan their families, and so started funding for show more contraception, etc. I found it interesting (and sad) that by the time the right wing backlash occurred in the 1980s, family planning was something that many developing countries actively wanted, and when the US pulled funding, many clinics started closing down.

The book covers a lot more ground than just contraception and abortion access. Goldberg devotes a chapter to Female Genital Mutilation and the attempts to curb the practice. She also covers the skewed sex ratios in India and Asia, where more boys are born than girls due to selective abortion of females.

I like how Goldberg really brings together all aspects of the reproductive rights movement, and argues that without woman's empowerment, the population issue will never be solved. Women cannot effectively plan their families, stand up against FGM or stop the selective abortion of females if they don't have any agency. Goldberg also shows how birth rates actually increase (up to about replacement level) in countries where women have full rights and abilities to take paid maternal leave, which is something that countries such as Italy may want to take into account.

Another important issue is that when the US swings from right to left, women are affected worldwide. Whether or not you are pro-choice or anti-choice, woman's clinics close when the right wing comes to power. This affects women's ability to obtain pap smears, maternal care, and, yes, safe abortions. (Illegal abortions are still a huge killer of women globally.)

The only thing missing from the book, but understandably due to the scope, is a deeper look into the HIV/AIDS crisis and how it disproportionally affects women. Goldberg briefly covers it in the conclusion of the book.

Overall an excellent book for those who want to get a bigger picture of the global struggle for women's rights and reproductive freedom. show less

A fascinating discussion of the ongoing evolution of the speed and style of what we call yoga today, traced from its roots in Indian spirituality to influences by Dutch gymnastics instruction, to what Indra Devi brought to the Arden spa in the 1950s, to the contemporary fast-paced power yoga we see so much of today. What Devi brought to the spa (and what caused yoga to really catch on in the U.S.) was apparently yoga without the religious underpinnings; an empowering alternative to the show more housewives-on-tranquilizers age. Devi "turned a very male discipline into an uplifting ritual for the cosmopolitan, spiritual-not-religious woman."

More fascinating was Devi's life itself and the numerous lives and subcultures she influenced across continents and countries, from Russia to Weimar Berlin to Shanghai to Mexico. Devi lived a life she based on love and nonattachment - fiercely independent and at times possibly a little bit too non-attached. She refused to be tethered by past memories or experiences and would not let nostalgia interrupt her focus on living in her present. Far from a quiet zen master, as she grew older refused to 'get old' and couldn't retire because "there are always more things to do."

"If yoga isn't just exercise, if it isn't religion, and if it isn't, in its current form, even all that old, then what the hell is it?" In short, a fusion and ongoing evolution of an already-evolving yoga of 100 years, influenced by the previous traditional understanding of yoga. Its contemporary links to "the same cultural matrix of organic food, holistic spas, and biodynamic beauty products - things that seem to go together so naturally" are linked so strongly in large part due to Devi pushing her brand of yoga in the 1950s at spas, and gained traction only when the spirituality element was thickly veiled or taken out entirely.

But as Goldberg points out, there is no such thing as unchanging authenticity - yoga is a creative dialogue and so far from its beginnings that it shouldn't need to be thought of in terms of purity or corruption. show less