Women, Gender and Enlightenment [Paperback]

Barbara Taylor (Editor), Sarah Knott (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0230517811 | ISBN-13: 978-0230517813 | Publication Date: November 27, 2007

Did women have an Enlightenment? Historians have long excluded women from the Enlightenment orbit. However, competing images of 'Woman' loomed large in Enlightenment thought, and women themselves - as scientists and salonnières, bluestockings and governesses, political polemicists and novelists - contributed much to enlightened intellectual culture. This path-breaking volume of interdisciplinary essays by forty leading scholars provides a detailed picture of the controversial, innovative role played by women and gender issues in the age of light.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Women, Gender, and Enlightenment is one of those rare collections that has it all. Combining searching historiographical essays with scholarly discussions of specific authors, this volume has an exceptionally wide reach, covering questions of sex, gender and politics as they emerged in Enlightenment France, England, Spain, Italy, Scotland and the American Colonies. But thanks to the authoritative introductions to each section and to the two concluding essays that take stock of the entire volume, Women, Gender, and Enlightenment does not feel uneven or miscellaneous but is instead animated by a spirit of collaboration. A marvelous and compelling book.' - Claudia L Johnson, Chair, Department of English, Princeton University

'The most comprehensive, diverse and stimulating account of women and gender in any era: an astonishing collective achievement'. - John Brewer, author of The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century

'The cumulative effect of this volume is stunning, in part because the repetitions and contradictions do at least highlight the different ways in which events, ideas and personalities can be interpreted, depending on the lens applied. A respect for multiple perspectives, an unwillingness to scorn the past, an interest in the many routes by which one can arrive at a given place - all these things make this volume a true work of collaboration and a landmark contribution to historical scholarship.' - TLS

About the Author

BARBARA TAYLOR is Reader in History at the University of East London, UK, and author of Eve and the New Jerusalem (1983) and Mary Wollstonecraft and the Feminist Imagination (2003). She was Director of the 'Feminism and Enlightenment' research project (1998-2001).

SARAH KNOTT is Assistant Professor in History at Indiana University, and at work on a history of sensibility in revolutionary America. She was research fellow on the 'Feminism and Enlightenment' project.

Product Details

• Paperback: 792 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (November 27, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0230517811
• ISBN-13: 978-0230517813
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #751,667 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)