A History of Their Own: Women in Europe from Prehistory to the PresentVolume I / Edition 1

by Bonnie S. Anderson, Judith P. Zinsser

Overview

This classic two-volume history is an exciting and revolutionary look at women's history from prehistoric times to the present. Its unique organization focuses on the developments, achievements, and changes in women's roles in society. Rather than examining women's history as an inevitable progression of events along a strict timeline, this text is organized within a loose chronology, with chapters focusing on women's place and function in society. This revised edition provides a new introduction, an updated epilogue on women's lives in Europe since 1988, and a completely revised bibliography that includes recent scholarship. A History of Their Own restores women to the historical record, brings their history into focus, and provides models of female action and heroism. Lively and engaging, this new edition takes readers on a fascinating journey through women's history and the changing roles they have played. In addition it is an ideal text for general courses in women's studies and women's history and more specialized courses focusing on women in European history.
Volume One covers women's history from the prehistoric period to the seventeenth century. It includes topics such as the treatment of and attitudes about women during earliest recorded history; the alternating forces of empowerment and subordination imposed on women by ancient religions and the emergence of Christianity; peasant women's daily experiences of childbirth, family life, and field labor; women's religious lives; and the contrast between the lives of noblewomen and the lives of townswomen in early modern Europe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195128383
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	09/16/1999
Edition description:	REVISED
Pages:	654
Product dimensions:	8.54(w) x 5.48(h) x 1.55(d)

About the Author

Brooklyn College and the Graduate Faculty, CUNY

Miami University, Ohio

Table of Contents

AcknowledgmentsIntroductionI. Traditions Inherited: Attitudes About Women From the Centuries Before 800 A.D.1. Buried Traditions: The Question of Origins2. Inherited Traditions: The Principal Influences3. Traditions Subordinating Women4. Traditions Empowering Women5. The Effects of ChristianityII. Women of the Fields: Sustaining the Generations1. The Constants of the Peasant Women's World: The Ninth to the Twentieth Centuries2. Sustaining the Generations3. The Extraordinary4. What Remains of the Peasant Woman's WorldIII. Women of the Churches: The Power of the Faithful1. The Patterns of Power and Limitation: The Tenth to the Seventeenth Centuries:2. Authority Within the Institutional Church3. Authority Outside the Institutional Church4. Authority Given and Taken Away: The Protestant and Catholic Reformations5. Traditional Images Redrawn6. The Legacy of the Protestant ReformationIV. Women of the Castles and Manors: Custodians of Land and Lineage1. From Warrior's Life to Noblewomen: The Ninth to the Seventeenth Centuries2. Constants of the Noblewoman's Life3. Power and Vulnerability4. The New Flowering of Ancient TraditionsV. Women of the Walled Towns: Providers and Partners1. The Townswoman's Daily Life: The Twelfth to the Seventeenth Centuries2. Dangers and Remedies3. The World of Commercial Capitalism: The Thirteenth to Seventeenth Centuries4. The Invisible and Visible Bonds of MisogynyNotesBibliographyIndex

Editorial Reviews

A groung-breaking two-volume work that makes the familiar landmarks and heroes of 'Western Civ 101' mere footnotes to a new version of history—one told from a woman's eye view.

Ms. Magazine

These are fascinating glimpses here of hundreds of women at home, at work, in the community, making their way into the commercial world, especially in textiles and clothing-related crafts...There is such a wealth of substance in these pages—a whole new view of women as artists and physicians, for example—the depth and breadth of material is truly astonishing. It is all intelligently organized and eminently readable.

Vermont Sunday Magazine

In this first of a two-volume survey of European women since 500 B.C., Bonnie Anderson and Judith Zinsser argue compellingly that throughout the recorded history of Europe, women's lives have been shaped more by their gender than by any other factor, whether class, religion, ethnicity, or nationality.

Los Angeles Times Book Review

Such a solid, synthetic work on European women's history will help answer those critics who have persisted in seeing women's history as marginal or peripheral...Compelling.

New York Times Book Review

Factors often ignored in histories of men, such as all the daily details that make up the hours, days, years of women's lives—food, clothing, shelter, contraception, diseases, religious practices—are described here in minute, lively and fascinating detail...The authors do not shy away from the difficult questions surrounding the history of women.

San Francisco Chronicle