Description
Book SynopsisThis work explores challenges to male hegemony throughout continental Europe. It focuses especially on France, but it also offers comparative material on developments in the German-speaking countries and in the smaller European nations and aspiring nation-states.
Trade Review"The most comprehensive analysis of European feminism to date." --
The Historian"[
European Feminisms] marks a milestone in recent scholarship in women's history and particularly the history of feminism. The originality of the book lies not only in its reinterpretation of the history of feminism but also in its inclusion of countries usually considered to be on the periphery of European history." --
The Historian"
European Feminisms provides the best-documented and most synthetic survey of the European-wide [feminist] effort to date." --
Journal of Women's History“...in the tremendous breadth of its coverage, this book is a tour de force; there is none that compares.”—
Journal of Modern History"Karen Offen's long-awaited book provides an ambitious and substantially fascinating comparative narrative of themes in the history of European feminism. . . . This is a thoroughly reasearched, bibliographically impeccable, and interpretatively feisty history." --
Europe: Early Modern and Modern"[
European Feminisms] will become an indispensable research tool for students and scholars. . . . By its range and research this represents a remarkable scholarly work and integrates the history of feminism convincingly into mainstream history.
European Feminisms provides a record of feminims' struggles as being fundamentally political and is itself a work of politics as well as of history." --
Women's History Review"
European Feminisms is a book that could be used in a wide variety of undergraduate and graduate courses in Women's Studies and gender studies, history, philosophy, and literature. Offen writes clearly, cogently, and persuasively . . . .For contemporary feminists,
European Feminisms offers invaluable lessons from the past for the future." --
NWSA Journal"Offen's history of European feminisms since 1700 is a fascinating tale of the complex relationship between political, state and feminist pragmatics. It will contribute to debates about what counts as a certain gain for feminism." --
Canadian Journal of Political Science"This is an important work both for its recovery of little-studied aspects of European feminisms and for the reinterpretation of their main strands. The author's ability to situate feminisms squarely in the political and intellectual history of Europe, as well as in various chronological, geographical, and ideological contexts, is particularly impressive." -- Mary Lynn Stewart * Simon Fraser University *
"[
European Feminisms] is clear, sensible, and forceful, and it never lapses into jargon or anachronism. It offers a rich account of the aspirations, illusions, disillusions, flounderings, achievements, and advances of a compelling cause." * Phi Beta Kappa Key Reporter *
Table of ContentsPreface Chronology: a framework for the study of European feminisms Prologue: history, memory, and empowerment 1. Thinking about feminism in European history Part I. The Eighteenth Century: 2. Reclaiming the enlightenment for feminism 3. Challenging masculine aristocracy: feminism and the French Revolution Part II. The Nineteenth Century: 4. Rearticulating feminist claims, 1820-1848 5. Birthing the 'Women question', 1848-1870 6. Internationalizing feminism, 1870-1890 7. Feminist challenges and antifeminist responses, 1890-1914 8. Nationalizing feminisms and feminizing nationalisms, 1890-1914 Part III. The Twentieth Century: 9. Feminism under fire: World War I, the Russian Revolution, and the Great Backlash, 1914-1930s 10. Feminist dilemmas in postwar national political cultures: England, Italy, Austria, Hungary, and Germany 11. More feminisms in national settings: Portugal, Ireland, Spain, and Sweden 12. Globalizing and politicizing European feminist international activity, 1919-1945 Epilogue: Reinventing the wheel? Notes Bibliography Index.
