This wide-ranging anthropology on the history of women in the twentieth-century West presents material on the state, work, philosophy, war, the arts, demography, the family, and the many feminist issues that drove the women’s movement from 1900 to the present… One delights in such unexpected scholarship as that on Quebec and on bioethics; the combination of predictable expert coverage of (for example) French women and of a certain degree of unpredictability further enriches the substance, pace, and virtuosity of Thébaud’s undertaking.

[This book] is far more than a chronicle of the many shifts and turns in the fortunes of women in the past eight decades. On the whole, the contents give the reader a close and searching look at the events and social currents behind these shifts, as well as insight into their historical significance.

The contributors…all share a commitment to write history from a gendered perspective that emphasizes relations between the sexes and the evolution of gender systems… This high-quality collection offers strong individual essays that, when read together, add up to more than the sum of their parts.

The concluding volume in this highly praised series continues the provocative survey of the role of women in our century through the ’70s… This series persists in generating much excitement as a source to survey the mature emergence of gender studies in history… This work has become a touchstone for all future studies of women’s history. Each volume assembles an international cast of scholars…specialists from many fields, introducing expository and theoretical historical essays about the function of women in history. The work avoids easy polemic and presents demanding, academically elaborate hypotheses about the nature and special procedures necessary to women’s history… These essays are written with rigor, methodologically complex engagements, reflecting state of the art of continental historical research and interpretation. This emerging perspective will revolutionize how history will be thought and taught.

Provide[s] a basis for understanding contemporary women and many of the issues—employment, sexuality, violence, political and economic advantage—that affect the health of women… [An] expansive view of women’s history.

A welcome new installment of the acclaimed series, Volume 5 surveys Western women’s history through the 1980s. Again, the focus is not strictly chronological; the work examines the social factors of the 20th century in the context of traditional women’s issues. The consequences of Freud and Marx; two world wars; nationalism and fascism; reproductive legislation; the bioethical rights of family members; and the feminist movement have created a century of drastic and not always beneficial change… This volume and the entire set are essential… The contributors and editors deserve accolades.