The Women of Colonial Latin America (New Approaches to the Americas) [Paperback]

Susan Migden Socolow (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521476429 | ISBN-13: 978-0521476423 | Publication Date: May 18, 2000

This book presents an overview of the varied experiences of women in colonial Spanish and Portuguese America. Beginning with the cultures that would produce the Latin American world, the book traces the effects of conquest, colonization, and settlement on colonial women. The book also examines the expectations, responsibilities, and limitations facing women in their varied roles, stressing the ways in which race, social status, occupation, and space altered women's social and economic realities.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This text will be especially useful to teachers of Latin American survey courses. The book rests solidly on the expanding base of articles and books now available to scholars. This is a good first book on the topic for readers at all levels." Choice

"Drawing upon a wealth of scholarship produced in the past thirty years, this engagingly written volume provides the best synthesis to date of its ambitious and wide-ranging topic...Specialists and non-specialists alike will come away from this text with a richer understanding of the opportunities and challenges that shaped the lives of women in the America ruled by Spain and Portugal." Luso-Brazilian Review

Book Description

This book presents an overview of the varied experiences of women in colonial Spanish and Portuguese America. Beginning with the cultures that would produce the Latin American world, the book traces the effects of conquest, colonization, and settlement on colonial women. The book also examines the expectations, responsibilities, and limitations facing women in their varied roles, stressing the ways in which race, social status, occupation, and space altered women's social and economic realities.

Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (May 18, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521476429
• ISBN-13: 978-0521476423
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #384,611 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Women of Colonial Latin America, November 9, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Women of Colonial Latin America (New Approaches to the Americas) (Paperback)

I'll be honest, and say that I had to get this books bcause of an assignement I was doing in school. The professor just asked me to write on a couple of chapters, kind of like a book review, but I was hooked! After I was done with the assignment I HAD to read the whole book, because It was really imformative, and interesting to read. I'm a history major, and as other historians know, the subject of women historically, has been in the dark since the beginning of time. Only recently have historians began to write about women. Socolow does a great job in her book, which focuses on women in Latin America She begins with the Spanish conquest of the New world and talks about the indigenous people before Columbus. Socolow includes the arrival of African women along with European ones. She goes on to talk about women, marriage, and family, the religious women and all about how the elite ones spent their time. Socolow touches on women and work and about slavery, and of course about their social deviance, like crime, withcraft and rebellions. It really is an outstanding book and I truly recommend it!

5.0 out of 5 stars Excelent, January 12, 2007

By 

Patricia (Puerto Rico) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Women of Colonial Latin America (New Approaches to the Americas) (Paperback)

It's a complete new perpective of the conquest and colonization. I read it for my history class and I loved it. It's an interesting reading.

4.0 out of 5 stars somewhat redundant, July 15, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Women of Colonial Latin America (New Approaches to the Americas) (Paperback)

The book was a very good collection of stories of the women of Colonial Latin America-but the stories were dull at times, and I just thought that there should have been more detail in regard to the actual women's lives.