The fourth volume in the ambitious project of the French historians Duby and Perrot to present the history of women from the antiquities till now proves that strong ambitions are worth pursuing. After antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the early modern period, this fourth volume deals with the nineteenth century. The final volume about the twentieth century is already published and with that a true masterpiece is done...This volume is fascinating, mainly because it gives such an extensive and comprehensive overview of the discourses of femininity and gender, and of all the arguments which have been used in relation to these themes in everyday knowledge, public debates, and social policies.
   --Trudie Knijn, Contemporary Sociology

A History of Women in the West is a collection of thoughtful essays by leading European and American scholars...After so many centuries of confinement, drudgery, anonymity and speculation about whether or not women qualify as human, how fine to come to Volume IV and such bracing chapters as `Daughters of Liberty and Revolutionary Citizens' and `Stepping Out!'
   --Elizabeth J. Sherman, Washington Times

A History of Women in the West is ambitious in conception and impressive in realization.
   --Jessica Mann, Literary Review

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.

Geneviève Fraisse is Research Associate in Philosophy, 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.

Read More 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 Women in the West, Volume III, Renaissance and the Enlightenment Paradoxes
• A History of Private Life, Volume II, Revelations of the Medieval World
• 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

Read More by Michelle Perrot:

• A History of Women in the West, Volume III, Renaissance and the Enlightenment Paradoxes
• 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

Read More 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 III, Renaissance and the Enlightenment Paradoxes
• Greek Virginity
• Paris: Capital of the World
• The Demands of Liberty: Civil Society in France since the Revolution