Volume III of A History of Women draws a richly detailed picture of women in early modern Europe, considering them in a context of work, marriage, and family. At the heart of this volume is "woman" as she appears in a wealth of representations, from simple woodcuts and popular literature to master paintings; and as the focal point of a debate--sometimes humorous, sometimes acrimonious--conducted in every field: letters, arts, philosophy, the sciences, and medicine. Against oppressive experience, confining laws, and repetitious claims about female "nature," women took initiative by quiet maneuvers and outright dissidence. In conformity and resistance, in image and reality, women from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries emerge from these pages in remarkable diversity.

Georges Duby, a member of the Académie Française, is Professor of Medieval History at the Collège de France.

Michelle Perrot is Professor of Contemporary History at the Université de Paris VII.

Natalie Zemon Davis is Henry Charles Lea Professor of History, Emerita, Princeton University.

Arlette Farge is Director of Research in Modern History, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris.

Arthur Goldhammer received the French-American Translation Prize in 1990 for his translation of A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution.

Other HUP Books by Georges Duby

• A History of Private Life, Volume V, Riddles of Identity in Modern Times
• A History of Private Life, Volume III, Passions of the Renaissance
• A History of Private Life, Volume II, Revelations of the Medieval World
• A History of Women in the West, Volume IV, Emerging Feminism from Revolution to World War
• A History of Women in the West, Volume II, Silences of the Middle Ages
• A History of Private Life, Volume IV, From the Fires of Revolution to the Great War
• A History of Women in the West, Volume I, From Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints
• A History of Women in the West, Volume V, Toward a Cultural Identity in the Twentieth Century
• A History of Private Life, Volume I, From Pagan Rome to Byzantium

Other HUP Books by Michelle Perrot

• A History of Women in the West, Volume IV, Emerging Feminism from Revolution to World War
• A History of Women in the West, Volume II, Silences of the Middle Ages
• A History of Private Life, Volume IV, From the Fires of Revolution to the Great War
• A History of Women in the West, Volume I, From Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints
• A History of Women in the West, Volume V, Toward a Cultural Identity in the Twentieth Century

Other HUP Books by Natalie Zemon Davis

• The Return of Martin Guerre
• Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives
• Slaves on Screen: Film and Historical Vision

Other HUP Books by Arlette Farge

• Fragile Lives: Violence, Power, and Solidarity in Eighteenth-Century Paris
• The Vanishing Children of Paris: Rumor and Politics before the French Revolution

Other HUP Books by Arthur Goldhammer

• France in the Enlightenment
• A History of Private Life, Volume III, Passions of the Renaissance
• The Village of Cannibals: Rage and Murder in France, 1870
• A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution
• A Small City in France
• A History of Women in the West, Volume II, Silences of the Middle Ages
• The Languages of Paradise: Race, Religion, and Philology in the Nineteenth Century
• A History of Private Life, Volume IV, From the Fires of Revolution to the Great War
• A History of Private Life, Volume V, Riddles of Identity in Modern Times
• The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France Since 1944
• A History of Women in the West, Volume I, From Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints
• Blessings in Disguise: or, the Morality of Evil
• A History of Private Life, Volume I, From Pagan Rome to Byzantium
• Dionysos at Large
• The Living Eye
• Tocqueville and the Two Democracies
• A History of Private Life, Volume II, Revelations of the Medieval World
• A History of Women in the West, Volume V, Toward a Cultural Identity in the Twentieth Century
• A History of Women in the West, Volume IV, Emerging Feminism from Revolution to World War
• Greek Virginity
• Paris: Capital of the World
• The Demands of Liberty: Civil Society in France since the Revolution