Rebel Life: The Life and Times of Robert Gosden, Revolutionary, Mystic,

by Mark Leier

Canada’s west coast was rife with upheaval in the second and third decades of the twentieth century. At the centre of the turmoil is Robert Gosden, migrant labourer turned radical activist – turned police spy. In 1913, he publicly recommends assassinating Premier Richard McBride to resolve the miners’ strike. By 1919, he is urging Prime Minister Robert Borden to "disappear" key labour radicals to quelch rising discontent. What happened? Rebel Life plumbs the enigma that was Gosden, but is it much an ideal introduction to BC labour history containing archival photograph and sidebars rich with historical arcana and a chapter outlining the research that unearthed Gosden’s story and a rich resource for instructors, students, and trade unionists.

272 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 1999

About the author

Mark Leier is a Canadian historian of working class and left-wing history. He is the director of the Centre for Labour Studies at Simon Fraser University, where he is also a Professor of Canadian History and the history of Marxism.
Politically anarchist, Leier's books have mostly reflected on British Columbia's rich history of labour radicalism. His first book, Where the Fraser River Flows: The Industrial Workers of the World in British Columbia (1990) deals with the famous syndicalist, working class rebels, while his second, Red Flags and Red Tape: The Making of a Labour Bureaucracy (University of Toronto Press) deals with the institutionalization of a non-revolutionary labour movement. In Rebel Life: The Life and Times of Robert Gosden, Revolutionary, Mystic, Labour Spy (1999), Leier examines the life of an Industrial Workers of the World member (or "Wobbly") turned police labour spy. His fourth book, Bakunin: The Creative Passion is a biography and political chronicle of the 19th century Russian anarchist, Mikhail Bakunin and is being published in paperback by Seven Stories Press.
As part of the Graphic History Collective, he helped produce May Day: A Graphic History of Protest," available through the SFU History Department.
A former folk singer, Leier is also known for bringing a banjo to his history classes.

Reviews

[Toby Mustill · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book on an individual’s life. Robert Godson clearly had an interesting life in and out of the labour movement. It’s also a unique perspective to look a disgraced labourer rather than a “hero”.

However the story itself is perhaps a third of the book. The author tells you why it’s an interesting story, tells the (relatively short) story, and then tells you why it’s a good and important story… which was a bit frustrating.