Customer Reviews

Born for Liberty

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
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2 star:		(1)
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Evans' "Born for Liberty" is an excellent history of women in the U.S. The women's rights movements are often times portrayed as struggles of white middle-class women for white middle-class women. Evans includes the struggles and contributions of working-class women, black women, and immigrant women to the women's rights movements. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about the struggle for equality and the role of women in shaping this country's history.

This edition of the text is an improvement on the first edition in its movement away from the east-coast view of women's history and a move towards a more inclusive analysis. As to the lack of definition of such terms as "oppression", as alluded to in another critique of the text, one is tempted to answer "I know it when I see it...," postmodernism just being the latest form of academic "oppression." Clearly Sara Evans is an outstanding practioner of history and one whom understands the skill of an historian's work. How easy it is to criticize that which you know so very little about.

I am lucky enough to be using this book as the main textbook for a Women's History class. It is a very informative book that is also very easy to read.

I enjoyed reading Evans look a the history of Women in the U.S. From it's beginnings in the colonial times, through the suffrage movement up to the 80's. It's a wonderful look at part of our history that is ignored in most texts. Highly recommend for any student of women's history!

Its title claims a broad accomplishment, an "all your answers are here" assertion. Although it presents hundreds of historical figures, it is quickly evident that by "History of Women," the author means "The Plight of Women and What Their Heroes Have Done About It." The narrative embraces the concept that from this county's origin to the present, women are victims of misogyny, but that there are several heroes of the struggle. Despite the decline in feminist momentum, there nevertheless seems to be a wealth of "historical" readings recently published by feminists. A critique of feminism's tenants will not be attempted with this review, but it seems pressing to take issue with the didactic narratives of "historical" texts such as Born for Liberty. Exempt from their presentations is a clear discussion of three essential components: definitions of the terms "oppression" and "liberty," and the ideologies that steer their metanarratives in the name of "history." The exemption of these elements does not allow for rhetorical inquiry, which is vital for the veracity of the texts' contents. Feminist history, arguably a genre of its own, credulously seeks to convert its readers on the pretense that there is a universal understanding of what it means to be oppressed and liberated. Once readers naively embrace this pretense, they are prone to also believing the tenants of feminism. Perhaps, then, the narrative of Born for Liberty will successfully promote the feminist agenda, but its converts will have naively succumbed to the same tactics of hierarchical propaganda that it claims to abhor.