History of Women in the West, Volume IV: Emerging Feminism from Revolution to World War / Edition 1

by Geneviève Fraisse, Arthur Goldhammer, Georges Duby, Michelle Perrot

Overview

The French Revolution opened a whole new stage in the history of women, despite their conspicuous absence from the playbill. The coming century would see women’s subordination to men codified in all manner of new laws and rules; and yet the period would also witness the birth of feminism, the unprecedented emergence of women as a collective force in the political arena.

The fourth volume in this world-acclaimed series covers the distance between these two poles, between the French Revolution and World War I. It gives us a vibrant picture of a bourgeois century, dynamic and expansive, in which the role of woman in the home was stressed more and more, even as the economic pressures and opportunities of the industrial revolution drew her out of the house; in which woman’s growing role in the family as the center of all morals and virtues pressed her into public service to fight social ills.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674403666
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	07/21/1998
Series:	History of Women in the West Series , #4
Edition description:	Revised Edition
Pages:	652
Product dimensions:	6.25(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Geneviève Fraisse is Research Associate in Philosophy, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris.

Michelle Perrot is Professor of Contemporary History at the Université de Paris VII.

Georges Duby, a member of the Académie Française, is Professor of Medieval History at the Collège de France.

Michelle Perrot is Professor of Contemporary History at the Université de Paris VII.

Table of Contents

Writing the History of Women
Georges Duby and Michelle Perrot

Orders and Liberties
Geneviève Fraisse and Michelle Perrot Translated by Arthur Goldhammer

1. The Political Rupture and the New Order of Discourse

1. Daughters of Liberty and Revolutionary Citizens
Dominique Godineau Translated by Arthur Goldhammer

2. The French Revolution as the Turning Point
Elisabeth G. Sledziewski Translated by Arthur Goldhammer

3. A Philosophical History of Sexual Difference
Geneviève Fraisse Translated by Arthur Goldhammer

4. The Law's Contradictions
Nicole Arnaud-Duc Translated by Arthur Goldhammer

2. The Production of Women, Real and Imaginary

5. Artistic and Literary Idolatries
Stéphane Michaud Translated by Arthur Goldhammer

6. Reading and Writing in Germany
Marie-Claire Hoock-Demarle Translated by Arthur Goldhammer

7. The Catholic Model
Michela De Giorgio Translated by Joan Bond Sax

8. The Protestant Woman
Jean Baubérot Translated by Arthur Goldhammer

9. The Making of the Modern Jewish Woman
Nancy L. Green

10. The Secular Model of Girls' Education
Françoise Mayeur Translated by Arthur Goldhammer

11. Images—Appearances, Leisure, and Subsistence
Anne Higonnet

12. Representations of Women
Anne Higonnet

3. The Civil Woman, Public and Private

13. Bodies and Hearts
Yvonne Knibiehler Translated by Arthur Goldhammer

14. Dangerous Sexualities
Judith R. Walkowitz

15. The Woman Worker
Joan W. Scott

16. Single Women
Cécile Dauphin Translated by Arthur Goldhammer

4. Modernities

17. Stepping Out
Michelle Perrot Translated by Arthur Goldhammer

18. Feminist Scenes
Anne-Marie Käppeli Translated by Arthur Goldhammer

19. The New Eve and the Old Adam
annelise Maugue Translated by Arthur Goldhammer

5. Women's Voices

Germaine de Staël
Geneviève Fraisse and Michelle Perrot

Lou Andreas-Salomé
Geneviève Fraisse and Michelle Perrot Translated by Arthur Goldhammer

Notes

Bibliography

Contributors

Illustration Credits

Index

Figures 1-47

Editorial Reviews

A History of Women in the West is a collection of thoughtful essays by leading European and American scholars… After so many centuries of confinement, drudgery, anonymity and speculation about whether or not women qualify as human, how fine to come to Volume IV and such bracing chapters as ‘Daughters of Liberty and Revolutionary Citizens’ and ‘Stepping Out!’

Washington Times - Elizabeth J. Sherman

The fourth volume in the ambitious project of the French historians Duby and Perrot to present the history of women from the antiquities till now proves that strong ambitions are worth pursuing. After antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the early modern period, this fourth volume deals with the nineteenth century. The final volume about the twentieth century is already published and with that a true masterpiece is done… This volume is fascinating, mainly because it gives such an extensive and comprehensive overview of the discourses of femininity and gender, and of all the arguments which have been used in relation to these themes in everyday knowledge, public debates, and social policies.

Contemporary Sociology - Trudie Knijn

A History of Women in the West is ambitious in conception and impressive in realization.

Literary Review - Jessica Mann

A History of Women in the West is ambitious in conception and impressive in realization.
— Jessica Mann

Literary Review

A History of Women in the West is a collection of thoughtful essays by leading European and American scholars...After so many centuries of confinement, drudgery, anonymity and speculation about whether or not women qualify as human, how fine to come to Volume IV and such bracing chapters as 'Daughters of Liberty and Revolutionary Citizens' and 'Stepping Out!'
— Elizabeth J. Sherman

Washington Times

The fourth volume in the ambitious project of the French historians Duby and Perrot to present the history of women from the antiquities till now proves that strong ambitions are worth pursuing. After antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the early modern period, this fourth volume deals with the nineteenth century. The final volume about the twentieth century is already published and with that a true masterpiece is done...This volume is fascinating, mainly because it gives such an extensive and comprehensive overview of the discourses of femininity and gender, and of all the arguments which have been used in relation to these themes in everyday knowledge, public debates, and social policies.
— Trudie Knijn

Contemporary Sociology

A welcome new installment of the acclaimed series (Vol. 4: American Feminism from Revolution to World War , LJ 9/15/93), Volume 5 surveys Western women's history through the 1980s. Again, the focus is not strictly chronological; the work examines the social factors of the 20th century in the context of traditional women's issues. The consequences of Freud and Marx; two world wars; nationalism and fascism; reproductive legislation; the bioethical rights of family members; and the feminist movement have created a century of drastic and not always beneficial change. Conspicuously absent are significant treatments of the contributions of American women to 20th-century feminism, though they are acknowledged in the introduction. That criticism aside, this volume and the entire set are essential for all but the smallest libraries. The contributors and editors deserve accolades.-- Jenny Presnell, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, Ohio

Library Journal

The goal is more a history of relations between the sexes rather than a history of women. Translated from the Italian Storia delle Donne in Occidente, v.1: L'Antichita (Gius. Laterza & Figli Spa, Roma- Bari, 1990), this is the first volume of a five-volume work. The western European experience is the primary focus, with some attention given to North America. Many different and contradictory points of view are expressed; as the brief introduction to the English edition points out, the essays have a somewhat different slant from what might have been produced had an Anglo-American team organized the project. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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