The Prospect Before Her: A History of Women in Western Europe, 1500 - 1800

by Olwen Hufton

Overview

Already hailed by English critics as "one of the most important works of history to be published since the Second World War, " Olwen Hufton's fascinating and brilliantly learned study begins, in this first of two volumes, with a wide ranging exploration of women's fate in Western Europe from medieval times to the early modern age. of illustrations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307791948
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/15/2011
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	672
File size:	6 MB

Editorial Reviews

Combining meticulous scholarship and elegant prose, this immensely rewarding history restores women to their key role in the birth of modern Europe. Defined by family status and limited job potential, condemned as lustful sinners or born hysterics by Church authorities and male doctors, ostracized and persecuted as witches, women nevertheless confounded patriarchal strictures and stereotypes. They farmed, midwived, joined urban workshops, sold goods in markets and on quays, worked at home in cottage industry, ran day-schools for children of working parents. Women in England, France, Germany and Holland took part in bread riots, political protests, rebellions, religious riots. Many women went to court seeking separation, divorce, protection from (or the incarceration of) abusive or drunken spouses. Drawing on women's diaries and memoirs, medical and theological tracts, advice manuals and legal documents, Hufton has unearthed a wealth of information on marriage, divorce, parenting, the Inquisition (between one-third and half of its victims in Spain and Portugal were women), infanticide, rape, prostitution, women writers and religious leaders. She traces the roots of modern feminism from Renaissance Venice, where nun Arcangela Tarabotti attacked the dowry system and men's greed, to the radical women's groups of the French Revolution and English polemicist Mary Wollstonecraft's fiery appeals for women's rights. Illustrated. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Hufton, one of the pioneers of women's studies and a highly respected historian, here investigates the prospects of a female child in the period 1500-1800, including marriage, spinsterhood, widowhood, or single motherhood, with such "careers" as silk worker, sausage maker, wet nurse, and prostitute. By 1800, women were beginning to protest the constraints on their lives. (LJ 11/15/96) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

"A major effort at synthesis...Ms. Hufton has a keen eye for the extraordinary interest in ordinary detail."

New York Times Book Review

"Magnificent. One of the most important works of history since the Second World War."

The Observer (London)

"A considerable feat ... Hufton ranges confidentlly through the centuries."

Of Books New York Review

"A major effort at synthesis...Ms. Hufton has a keen eye for the extraordinary interest in ordinary detail."—New York Times Book Review

From the Publisher