Books

A Century of Sex
Loving Your Marriage Enough to Protect It
Creative Family Times: Practical Activities for Building Character in Your Preschooler
Empowering Single Parents: Ten Ways to Increase Your Effectiveness
And the Bride Wore White: Seven Secrets to Sexual Purity
When Anger Hits Home: Taking Care of Your Anger Without Taking It Out on Your Family (Healing for the Heart S.)
67 Ways to Good Sleep: A People's Medical Society Book
Arthritis: Stop Suffering, Start Moving
Pop the Question
Marriage: Just a Piece of Paper?
Beyond "I Do": What Christians Believe About Marriage
Let's Talk Marriage: A Guide for Couples Preparing to Marry
The Lord Is My Shepherd
Your Name Is Hughes Hannibal Shanks: Caregiver's Guide to Alzheimer's (Agendas for Aging S.)
Irregular Connections: A History of Anthropology and Sexuality (Critical Studies in the History of Anthropology)
Son of Two Bloods
Case Simulations in Respiratory Care
Epilepsy: Patient and Family Guide: Patient and Family Guide
The Magic of Massage: New and Holistic Approach
Families and Health
Males at Risk: Other Side of Child Sexual Abuse
Studying Families (Applied Social Research Methods S.)
Family Relationships in Later Life (Sage Focus Editions)
From Child Care to Elder Care: Balancing Work and Family (Applications of Family Caregiving S.)
Advancing Family Preservation Practice (Sage Focus Editions)

A Smart Girls Guide to Boys: Surviving Crushes, Staying True to Yourself & Other Stuff (American Girl Library)

Average customer rating:

Helpful Teen Book
Great Series of Books
It is really good
Loving this series.....
Excuse Me

A Smart Girls Guide to Boys: Surviving Crushes, Staying True to Yourself & Other Stuff (American Girl Library)
Nancy Holyoke
Manufacturer: American Girl
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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A Smart Girl's Guide To Sticky Situations: How To Tackle Tricky, Icky Problems And Tough Times. (American Girl (Paperback Unnumbered))
A Smart Girls Guide to Friendship Troubles
A Smart Girl's Guide to Starting Middle School: Everything You Need to Know About Juggling More Homework, More Teachers, and More Friends (American Girl Library)
The Feelings Book: The Care & Keeping of Your Emotions (American Girl)
The Care & Keeping of You: The Body Book for Girls (American Girl Library)

ASIN: 1584853689

Customer Reviews:

Helpful Teen Book.......2007-03-10

I really liked this book because it helped me understand relationships with boys and answered a lot of questions that I had.

Great Series of Books.......2007-01-19

Good book bought it for my daughter she really enjoyed reading it. A+++++++++

It is really good.......2006-11-06

I have loads of american girl books at home this book was really really good i recomend this book for under 12s

Loving this series............2006-08-30

I wasn't going to get this title for my nine year old. I thought she was too young. But she REALLY wanted it, telling me, "Mom, I've had tons of crushes already!" I bought it and read it first. While I still think she's a little young for some of the information (especially the "going together" section toward the end), a lot of it was very age appropriate. Rather than just give it to her, we are reading it together. (Thankfully I have a very open and trusting daughter who doesn't get embarrassed by "growing up" issues.) I explained to her that reading about these things does not give her permission to do them.

I strongly disagree with the review on July 13, 2006. I feel that this is an empowering book for girls. It (like most of the books in this series) aids in building self esteem. I found it full of great advice, reinforcing my values and beliefs.

And, for this age group, I appreciate that it doesn't go into sexual relationships. There is a time and place for those books. I am relieved to be able to give her a book about the feelings and situations with boys that come BEFORE intimate relationships.

Excuse Me.......2006-07-28

Ummm to the lady who said not to buy this I have a question for you; why do u care how its worded? This is a book for girls to be comfortable with, not something from a psychology book! consider that! and your knitpicking! U must have no life to complain about wording. Anyway the book is awesome! It helped my daughter become comfortable enough to talk to me about her crushes! She is totally ready!~

The First Man-Made Man: The Story of Two Sex Changes, One Love Affair, and a Twentieth-Century Medical Revolution

Average customer rating:

Beyond gender (hello hooray)
Most people think Christine Jorgensen was the first
Understand Transgenderism
Spellbinding and fantastic
The First Man-Made Man: The Story of Two Sex Changes, One Love Affair, and a Twentieth-Century Medical Revolution

The First Man-Made Man: The Story of Two Sex Changes, One Love Affair, and a Twentieth-Century Medical Revolution
Pagan Kennedy
Manufacturer: Bloomsbury USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Poor People
Christine Falls: A Novel
Nineteen Minutes: A Novel
Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant
Heyday: A Novel

ASIN: 1596910151
Release Date: 2007-03-06

Book Description

In the 1920s when Laura Dillon felt like a man trapped in a woman’s body, there were no words to describe her condition; transsexuals had yet to enter common usage. And there was no known solution to being stuck between the sexes. Laura Dillon did all she could on her own: she cut her hair, dressed in men’s clothing, bound her breasts with a belt. But in a desperate bid to feel comfortable in her own skin, she experimented with breakthrough technologies that ultimately transformed the human body and revolutionized medicine. From upper-class orphan girl to Oxford lesbian, from post-surgery romance with Roberta Cowell (an early male-to-female) to self-imposed exile in India, Michael Dillon’s incredible story reveals the struggles of early transsexuals and challenges conventional notions of what gender really means.

Customer Reviews:

Beyond gender (hello hooray).......2007-06-28

Gay is the new straight and trans is the new gay. Maybe, soon enough, TG will become the neo hippie. All in your mind. Dolly Parton, after all, has had a lot more surgery than Christine Jorgensen ever did. So let us now push further.

Not as emotional or as 'literary' as Chris Beam's Transparent, Pagan Kennedy has nevertheless penned the 1st trans book anyone outside the trans world 'should' read. Trans is coming soon to Hollywood, I betcha, and here's a real contender.

The First Man-Made Man works several themes - history (Hirschfeld, Benjamin, et al.), drama ('burned by the blond') and ideology (modern ID data necessitated HRT and SRS, which led to mainstream cosmetic surgery) - quite cohesively.

Kennedy's metanarrative is not "transition" however, but self-actualization. Protagonist Dillion's eternal quest (from FtM, then from Oxford Englishman to Tibetan monk) keeps the humanist foundation of this saga transparent - and tendentious.

Kennedy's conclusion that, by today, "gender had become ... a show tune you lip-synched when it matched the secret beat of your own heart" will assuredly infuriate postops (deal, ladies) but it will resound with a bewildered (mainstream) boomer.

Robert Owen, roll over - the new plastic man and woman (and genderfu**er) have arrived, to conquer the universe.

Which sounds about right on time to me!

Most people think Christine Jorgensen was the first.......2007-06-11

This is the story of Laura Maude Dillon, AKA Laurence Michael Dillon, woman, auto mechanic, member of the British peerage, security guard, physician, world traveler, man, and finally religious pilgrim. There are huge gaps in the story, out of necessity since much evidence of what he did at certain times in his life are long gone, but it does tell a story of a troubled person who was relatively openly transgendered in the 1930s and died mysteriously in 1962 in India at the age of 47.

Included was a brief early history of plastic surgery and a lengthy introduction to the only "woman" he appears to have ever loved, a man in transition to a woman. There is also commentary on the British class system and gender roles of the 1940s and 1950s, so this is quite a multifaceted book for being barely 200 pages.

What's this obsession with the word "vertiginous"?

Understand Transgenderism.......2007-05-10

The true story of two sex changes is interwoven with scientific, medical and social history. You'll understand how difficult it is to change genders.

Spellbinding and fantastic.......2007-05-09

The First Man-Made Man is enthralling, as gripping as the most powerful novel, written with exquisite authority and mastery. Rich in fascinating biographical, sociological and medical research, it's as suspenseful as a Hitchcock thriller. I was hooked from the first page and couldn't put this gorgeous book down, reading it breathlessly. The characters leap from the page, extraordinary and courageous. Pagan Kennedy takes a subject that might, in less capable hands, be sensationalized, and instead turns it into a profoundly human and moving story about yearning and loneliness, and an intense, existential quest for identity. The restless, searching spirit of Michael Dillon, brave and reviled, is captured vividly. He emerges as a vulnerable person of tremendous grace and dignity. From the posh halls of Oxford to the back of a dingy garage, from a ship sailing across the open seas to a remote Tibetan Buddhist monastery, First Man-Made Man catapults the reader into one memorable man's wild, often hostile, world. This poetic adventure is unforgettable.

The First Man-Made Man: The Story of Two Sex Changes, One Love Affair, and a Twentieth-Century Medical Revolution.......2007-05-08

I've read any book on this topic I can get my hands on. Well written book, with enough pictures to give me a sense of who Michael was and how desperately he wanted to live a normal life as a man. I wish his autobiography was available to read. I highly recommend this book!

Precious Records: Women in China's Long Eighteenth Century

Average customer rating:

women but not gender
A Feminine View

Precious Records: Women in China's Long Eighteenth Century
Susan Mann
Manufacturer: Stanford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

The Inner Quarters: Marriage and the Lives of Chinese Women in the Sung Period
Under Confucian Eyes: Writings on Gender in Chinese History
Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century China
Women, the Family, and Peasant Revolution in China
A Daughter of Han: The Autobiography of a Chinese Working Woman

ASIN: 0804727449

Book Description

This first book-length study of gender relations in the Lower Yangzi region during the High Qing era (c. 1683-1839) challenges enduring late-nineteenth-century perspectives that emphasized the oppression and subjugation of Chinese women. Placing women at the center of the High Qing era shows how gender relations shaped the economic, political, social, and cultural changes of the age, and gives us a sense of what women felt and believed, and what they actually did, during this period.

Most analyses of gender in High Qing times have focused on literature and on the writings of the elite; this book broadens the scope of inquiry to include women's work in the farm household, courtesan entertainment, and women’s participation in ritual observances and religion. In dealing with literature, it shows how women's poetry can serve the historian as well as the literary critic, drawing on one of the first anthologies of women's writing compiled by a woman to examine not only literary sensibilities and intimate emotions, but also political judgments, moral values, and social relations.

After an introductory chapter that evaluates the historiography of Chinese women, the book surveys High Qing history, charts the female life course, and discusses women's place in writing and learning, in entertainment, at work, and in religious practice. The concluding chapter returns to broad historiographic questions about where women figure in space and time and why we can no longer write histories that ignore them.

Customer Reviews:

women but not gender.......2002-03-06

I am glad to see this book, because this book is the first book-length study of women during the High Qing. I think this book does not fulfill what it promises in the introduction -- to challgenge the lens of Orientalism. It is true that the book goes beyond the paradigm of oprresionn and subjugation and examines farm household, courtesan entertainment, religion, etc., but it tries too hard to claim a voice for Chinese women. Who is the author to "recover" Chinese women's voice? In reinventing the "traditional" woman, the author perpetuates the gaze on women. There are some complexities of different "types" of women, but the author lacks a critical self-reflection. Afterall, what alternative is she bringing in to replace Orientalism?

A Feminine View.......2000-07-25

To an even greater extent than in the West, the views of Chinese women have been seldom heard; Susan Mann's book attempts to correct that for women of the Qing Period (1644- 1911)although she comfortably moves back and forward in time to other periods. To an admirable degree, she succeeds in her task. She brings together primary sources from women themselves where possible but does not hesitate to supplement those sources with the work of male writers, often court officials, where necessary. Speaking of gender, a cover blurb (and to some extent the Introduction with its use of terms like 'male gaze' etc.) could suggest that this is a 'feminist' work. To view it as such would be a mistake;Mann is a highly respected scholar who happens to be of the female gender and she 'tells it like it was' without emphasising either sentimental or ideological aspects of the lives of Chinese women. Without wishing to downplay her obvious and genuine concern for feminine issues, she can only be described as a 'feminist historian'in the way that, say, Ursula LeGuin is a feminist writer of fantasy and science fiction or Alison Jolly a feminist writer on human evolution or biology. The work is clearly directed towards students of Chinese history but is well written and should be enjoyable to anyone with a serious interest in China (and with a little perseverence). Some chapters are dense and scholarly, like Chapter 4 on 'Writing' which explores many primary sources, whilst others read quite smoothly. This is not a criticism; just a fact of life for such a work. Mann does everything possible to ease the burden for her readers with, for example, many pertinent illustrations, references largely moved to comprehensive Endnotes and an English' Chinese character list. The book does not attempt to cover all areas of Qing history (thankfully) but covers the areas it promises to in great detail- a reader can ask for little more. Recommended.

Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern

Average customer rating:

Excellent Overview of the Era
Delightful, easy reading
Just the bee's knees!
Living in that era
Flappers as consumers

Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern
Joshua Zeitz
Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Social History | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books

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Similar Items:

Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1940: How Americans Lived Through the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression
Jazz Age Beauties: The Lost Collection of Ziegfeld Photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston
Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920's (Perennial Classics)
When the Astors Owned New York: Blue Bloods and Grand Hotels in a Gilded Age
The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920s (Galaxy Books)

ASIN: 1400080541
Release Date: 2007-02-06

Book Description

Blithely flinging aside the Victorian manners that kept her disapproving mother corseted, the New Woman of the 1920s puffed cigarettes, snuck gin, hiked her hemlines, danced the Charleston, and necked in roadsters. More important, she earned her own keep, controlled her own destiny, and secured liberties that modern women take for granted. Her newfound freedom heralded a radical change in American culture.

Whisking us from the Alabama country club where Zelda Sayre first caught the eye of F. Scott Fitzgerald to Muncie, Indiana, where would-be flappers begged their mothers for silk stockings, to the Manhattan speakeasies where patrons partied till daybreak, historian Joshua Zeitz brings the era to exhilarating life. This is the story of America’s first sexual revolution, its first merchants of cool, its first celebrities, and its most sparkling advertisement for the right to pursue happiness.

The men and women who made the flapper were a diverse lot.

There was Coco Chanel, the French orphan who redefined the feminine form and silhouette, helping to free women from the torturous corsets and crinolines that had served as tools of social control.

Three thousand miles away, Lois Long, the daughter of a Connecticut clergyman, christened herself “Lipstick” and gave New Yorker readers a thrilling entrée into Manhattan’s extravagant Jazz Age nightlife.

In California, where orange groves gave way to studio lots and fairytale mansions, three of America’s first celebrities—Clara Bow, Colleen Moore, and Louise Brooks, Hollywood’s great flapper triumvirate—fired the imaginations of millions of filmgoers.

Dallas-born fashion artist Gordon Conway and Utah-born cartoonist John Held crafted magazine covers that captured the electricity of the social revolution sweeping the United States.

Bruce Barton and Edward Bernays, pioneers of advertising and public relations, taught big business how to harness the dreams and anxieties of a newly industrial America—and a nation of consumers was born.

Towering above all were Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, whose swift ascent and spectacular fall embodied the glamour and excess of the era that would come to an abrupt end on Black Tuesday, when the stock market collapsed and rendered the age of abundance and frivolity instantly obsolete.

With its heady cocktail of storytelling and big ideas, Flapper is a dazzling look at the women who launched the first truly modern decade.

From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent Overview of the Era.......2007-06-20

This reads almost like a novel, and is great about putting the whole era for women in perspective.

Delightful, easy reading.......2007-02-28

I picked this book up as research for a story I'm working on. Before I knew it, I found myself on page 100, and it kept getting better! While it is historical it reads more like a story between friends. The continuing story of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald is interwoven into the book and never becomes cumbersome. All through the book, the author has included quotes and stories taken from interviews with those who lived in the roaring twenties. These bring a fresh, humorous, and personal touch to the era. It was a well-written, reader friendly book, full of fun information and stories about a bygone era. If you're at all interested in flappers, the 1920's, Prohibition, the Fitzgeralds, the beginning of the modern era, or the first sexual revolution, buy this book!

Just the bee's knees!.......2007-01-09

I rarely read non-fiction books all the way through, preferring to have them on hand as reference guides but I read "Flapper" from cover to cover; "Flapper" is that good. Zeitz recreates an entire era, shows us the good and the bad and in the end, I came away lamenting the fact that I was born decades too late to have enjoyed this era. This isn't just a book about the Twenties; Zeitz spends a considerable amount of time showing how the changing trends in the United States all led up to the cultural change of the new, independent woman, as well as the eventual downfall; the parallels Zeitz to contemporary society are also very apt.

Zeitz does not romanticize the era he's writing about - he's careful to point out the racism and class distinction that were prevalent. Zeitz devotes quite a bit of time to the New Yorker's all-but-forgotten writer Lois Long aka Lipstick, a fascinating girl about town, but does point out the less than savory overt racism in her work.

Other notable persons discussed in the book are familiar names like Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Coco Chanel, Louise Brooks and Clara Bow, as well as those who are less familiar nowadays like the aforementioned Long and actress Colleen Moore. Zeitz has done a great job and this book, just like the legacy of the flapper, will endure.

Living in that era.......2006-12-24

I would have loved to live at that time...
Wonderful book, a little goldmine of info.
Only one reserve: Scott Fitzgerald at the beginning of the book made me wondering if he was to be there all through it. He & Zelda are not sooooo interesting. I would have prefered a better intro to the Flapper age.
Nonetheless, book highly recommended.

Flappers as consumers.......2006-11-10

Interesting book about the dawn of marketing, mass media and political spin. the Flapper, was just the most visible embodiment of a host of ecomonic and political changes. A good read - it would benefit from tighter referencing though.

Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest

Average customer rating:

It was fascinating!

Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest
Anne McClintock
Manufacturer: TF-ROUTL
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule
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The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double-Consciousness
Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity
The Location of Culture (Routledge Classics)

ASIN: 0415908906

Book Description

Imperial Leather chronicles the dangerous liaisons between gender, race and class that shaped British imperialism and its bloody dismantling. Spanning the century between Victorian Britain and the current struggle for power in South Africa, the book takes up the complex relationships between race and sexuality, fetishism and money, gender and violence, domesticity and the imperial market, and the gendering of nationalism within the zones of imperial and anti-imperial power.

Anne McClintock explores the sexualizing of the terra incognita, the imperial myth of the empty lands, the dirt fetish and the "civilizing mission", sexuality and labor, advertising and commodity racism, the Victorian invention of the idle woman, feminism and racial difference, and anti-apartheid culture in the current transformation of national power.

Using feminist, post-colonial, psychoanalytic and socialist theories, Imperial Leather argues that the categories of gender, race and class do not exist inisolation, but emerge in intimate relation to one another. Drawing on diverse cultural forms--novels, advertising, diaries, poetry oral history, and mass commodity spectacle--the book examines imperialism not only as a poetics of ambivalence, but as a politics of violence. Rejecting traditional binaries of self/other, man/woman, colonizer/colonized, Anne McClintock calls instead for a more informed and complex understanding of catgories of social power and identity.

Customer Reviews:

It was fascinating!.......2003-08-20

I don't agree with the reviewer for Library Journal because I found McClintock's book thorough and solid. She situates the book in a very clever way in the myriad of "isms" and scholarly debates on post-colonialism. She argues that one cannot talk about colonialism without at the same time investigate how gender,race, sexuality, class etc, has shaped the colonial discourse and discussion.
I would recommend this book to people interested in feminist, gender, postcolonial studies but also to anyone who wants a more indepth and creative analysis of the current debate on postcolonialism and gender.

Average customer rating:

Women, Gender and Enlightenment
Barbara Taylor , and Sarah Knott
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

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The Hardest Deal of All: The Battle over School Integration in Mississippi, 1870-1980
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An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

ASIN: 1403904936
Release Date: 2005-08-11

Book Description

Historians long excluded women from the Enlightenment orbit. But modern research shows that "woman" and gender were key categories of Enlightenment thought, and that women themselves--as scientists and salonnieres, bluestockings and governesses, feminists and novelists--contributed much to enlightened intellectual culture. This 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.

City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London

Average customer rating:

An Interesting new Scholarship
A book highly recommended for any in-depth college-level collection.
engaging, incomparable critique of historic British prints
A Fabulous History

City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London
Vic [V.A.C.] Gatrell
Manufacturer: Walker & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Love, Sex & Marriage | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Satire, General | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

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A Royal Affair: George III and His Scandalous Siblings
Paris: The Secret History
Hogarth: The Artist and the City
The Aeneid
Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from the 1920s (Metropolitan Museum of Art Publications)

ASIN: 0802716024
Release Date: 2006-11-28

Book Description

Between 1770 and 1830, London was the world’s largest and richest city, the center of hectic social ferment and spectacular sexual liberation. These singular conditions prompted revolutionary modes of thought, novel sensibilities, and constant debate about the relations between men and women. Such an atmosphere also stimulated outrageous behavior, from James Boswell’s copulating on Westminster Bridge to the Prince Regent’s attempt to seduce a woman by pleading, sobbing, and stabbing himself with a pen-knife. And nowhere was London’s lewdness and iconoclasm more vividly represented than its satire.

City of Laughter chronicles the rise and fall of a great tradition of ridicule and of the satirical, humorous, and widely circulated prints that sustained it. Focusing not on the polished wit upon which polite society prided itself, but rather on malicious, sardonic and satirical humor—humor that was bawdy, knowing and ironic—Vic Gatrell explores what this tradition says about Georgian views of the world and about their own pretensions. Taking the reader into the clubs and taverns where laughter flowed most freely, Gatrell examines how Londoners laughed about sex, scandal, fashion, drink and similar pleasures of life.

Combining words and images–including more than 300 original drawings by Cruikshank, Gillray, Rowlandson, and others—City of Laughter offers a brilliantly original panorama of the era, providing a ground-breaking reappraisal of a period of change and a unique account of the origins of our attitudes toward sex, celebrity and satire today.

Customer Reviews:

An Interesting new Scholarship.......2007-03-09

Benny Hill in 1800. We tend to think of the Brits as being rather prudish. There was even a play a few years ago -- 'No Sex Please, We're British.' We especially think of the days past when Jane Austen was writting her sexless romance stories that only a minimum amount of 'laying down and thinking of England' was done to perpetuate the race.

Now comes Mr. Gattrell's book that blows that all apart. He managed to find some hundreds (at least) of graphic prints in the British museum that are more graphic than you would expect to see. Ribald is the word that comes to mind. Here are drawings of every aspect you can image. There's bathroom humor, sexual satire, everything you can imagine.

Underneath the humor there is more serious research as Mr. Gatrell has used the prints to illustrate the climate of the times. It is a bit of scholarship not seen before and which may be used to increase our understanding of the times, much as the cartoons of Lincoln help to explain the background to our own Civil War.

A book highly recommended for any in-depth college-level collection........2007-03-06

CITY OF LAUGHTER: SEX AND SATIRE IN 18TH-CENTURY LONDON considers the presence and meaning of lewd graphic prints in early 18th century London society, and comes from a little-known treasure trove of such prints long held by the British Library. These prints held satire, observational pieces, and represented a changing sexual and social climate in the country: they are key to any in-depth, college-level understanding of 18th century London. Thousands of such prints of the era explore Georgian worldviews and habits in a book highly recommended for any in-depth college-level collection.

engaging, incomparable critique of historic British prints.......2007-02-14

Gatrell seamlessly blends art history and appreciation with social history for an elaborate, panoramic treatment of the spirit of ribaldry and satire captured in numerous comic prints of the era. The author goes well beyond the best known satirical artists of Hogarth, Gillray, Rowlandson, and Cruickshank to include numerous others as well. (The treatment carries over into the early nineteenth century.) Nearly 300 of the prints are reproduced in color in varying sizes from full-page to one-third of the 5" x 10" page size. In this century of sweeping social change from the old order to a much more democratic society, the artists took full advantage of their new freedoms and the growing number of newspapers and other media including posters to portray the antics and vices of English men and women. No one, not royalty or high politicians, escaped the scathing portraits of Hogarth, Rowlandson, and the others; though many of the prints had generic characters such as lechers, lusty women, hypocrites, and drunkards. Pornographic and scatological material and illustration knew no bounds. Still, much of the art of caricature and satire had a moralistic or political intent. In the early 1800s, the "radical commentary turned solemn and earnest on the whole, as a new optimism about the prospects for social- and self-improvement developed." Democratic society had grown to understand itself, its potentials, and its desirable proprieties better. The Victorian era was dawning. Adulterers, drunkards, etc., were no longer to be simply ridiculed, but reformed. Besides, it was becoming increasingly risky to make merciless and often bitter fun of recognizable leaders of society--the legal and financial troubles of some of the satirists moderated others. But generally, as democratic, middle-class values and tastes spread throughout the society, the wicked satire which could send a heir to the throne into seclusion and evoke "wild, coarse, reckless, ribald laughter...was beginning to be taught good manners," as the novelist Thackeray saw. Gatrell is a professor of British history in England.

A Fabulous History.......2006-12-25

I cannot rate this book too highly. It is profusely illustrated with hundreds of caricatures from the period; it is well written, witty, and deeply informed; and it covers ground of great interest to anyone interested in the birth of our modern world, this history of manners, or the specific artists treated, e.g. James Gillray, Cruikshank, or Rowlandson. The book is a deep, social history of the satirical print in England from 1780 to 1830, following the winding routes by which laughter, public sexuality, ridicule, and free speech made their way into the 19th century. The scholarly documentation is formidable.

Anyone with an interest in 18th or early 19th century culture will enjoy this book and find a wealth of fascinating observations. Of course, those who have a love for the artists themselves, will find this to be an inestimable resource!

Particularly interesting is the treatment of 'Libertine Philosophy', and the fuzzy boundaries between the high and low-lifes of London of the 18th century when it came to amusement. Gatrell's discussions of the 'history of laughter', yes, it has a history, is brilliant. If you have ever thought about why some jokes are taboo, why laughing out loud can be wonderful or embarrassing, read on.

Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX: The Law That Changed the Future of Girls in America

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Absolutely imperative if you are a woman
Linking women's equality to Title IX
Much-needed history for today's young women
Richie's Picks: LET ME PLAY
A great overview of a law that changed womens' lives

Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX: The Law That Changed the Future of Girls in America
Karen Blumenthal
Manufacturer: Atheneum
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0689859570

Book Description

Can girls play softball? Can girls be school crossing guards? Can girls play basketball or ice hockey or soccer? Can girls become lawyers or doctors or engineers?
Of course they can...

today. But just a few decades ago, opportunities for girls were far more limited, not because they weren't capable of playing or didn't want to become doctors or lawyers, but because they weren't allowed to. Then quietly, in 1972, something momentous happened: Congress passed a law called "Title IX," forever changing the lives of American girls.

Hundreds of determined lawmakers, teachers, parents, and athletes carefully plotted to ensure that the law was passed, protected, and enforced. Time and time again, they were pushed back by Þerce opposition. But as a result of their perseverance, millions of American girls can now play sports. Young women make up half of the nation's medical and law students, and star on the best basketball, soccer, and softball teams in the world. This small law made a huge difference.

From the Sibert Honor-winning author of Six Days in October comes this powerful tale of courage and persistence, the stories of the people who believed that girls could do anything -- and were willing to fight to prove it.

A Junior Library Guild Selection

Customer Reviews:

Absolutely imperative if you are a woman.......2006-10-17

I consider myself quite well informed about current women's issues, but had always wondered what the impetus was behind Title IX. I had no idea that the law we hear about that applies to women's equal access to sports, was aimed at equal access to college admissions and financial assistance. I cried several time while reading this book; I was mad at the earlier treatment of women, I was saddened by the personal stories of disappointment suffered by the women who were shut out of playing games they loved only because they were girls. I was also proud of the triumphs of the recent past, but mostly I was moved to buy another copy and pass it around to as many women as I can. ANY WOMAN WHO HAS PLAYED SPORTS OR GONE TO COLLEGE IN THE LAST 30 YEARS, OWES IT TO THEMSELVES TO READ, APPRECIATE, AND SHARE THIS BOOK WITH THE NEXT GENERATION OF GIRLS. Laurie in Utah

Linking women's equality to Title IX .......2006-08-29

Let Me Play puts a passionate perspective on the plight of women in the fight to obtain simple civil liberties and human equalities. Author Karen Blumenthal presents her work in a format targeted to a young audience, making this easily manageable book appealing to people of all ages that appreciate the continuing battle for equal rights.

Let Me Play is not simply the history of Title IX, part of the 1972 education amendments to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but an outline of the ongoing fight women have endured in demanding equal treatment. It tells the stories of women all over the country fighting for recognition as something more than homemakers. Let Me Play fervently depicts, through narration, anecdotes, pictures and cartoons, the ways women fought, and still fight, for status as equal humans of equal worth.

In her book, Blumenthal vividly profiles the lives of many empowered women from soccer superstar Mia Hamm, who grew up playing on boys' soccer and American football teams, to 1993 University of Louisville Medical School graduate Dot Richardson, Olympic softball gold medalist and orthopedic surgeon. The stories of these women are heartening and relatable. No matter their field or occupation, each of them was once a girl growing up in a boy's world.

Let Me Play is a powerful addition to the unique genre of children's books adopted by Blumenthal, celebrated author and Wall Street Journal reporter. She has a way of capturing the meaning and relative application of a major historical event and conveying it in a way that is straightforward and dynamic, educational and entertaining.

Let Me Play is, essentially, the very recent, very true and very shocking story of girls being denied the right to not only participate in school-sanctioned sports and activities but also to take top-level math and science classes and be admitted to top universities, solely because of their gender.

The underlying message of Let Me Play is this: Know the words of Title IX and remember that, by law, no one can deny you the right to play, learn, advance and win.

A fiery and well examined recounting of the road to equality for women peppered with fun political cartoons and unforgettable quotes, this book is a necessity for any girl who plays ball in a once strictly male park.

Much-needed history for today's young women.......2006-01-26

I'm so glad to see a history for today's young women about what it was like before Title 9 - which, while it wasn't that long ago, seems unreal to my daughter's generation. I remember The Days Before, when the boys got the gym and were formed into athletic teams while the girls got WHAT PASSED for PE - calisthenics in the cafeteria! (and instructional time was used to move the tables and chairs aside)

In a day when feminism is facing a hostile backlash, Ms. Blumenthal's book is a valuable reminder that "what used to be" wasn't as rosy as some claim, a reminder of the gains made in sports by talented girls, and of what we DON'T want to return to! Five stars!

Richie's Picks: LET ME PLAY.......2005-06-13

"Female admissions to colleges and graduate programs picked up speed, driven by female ambition, the law, and a growing acceptance that it was simply wrong to reject someone just for being a girl. Between 1971 and 1976 the number of women attending college jumped 40 percent. By the fall of 1976 one in every four law students was a woman, up from fewer than one in ten in 1971; likewise, a quarter of first-year medical students were female, up from about one in seven just five years before."

Recently at this year's Book Expo in New York City, I had the pleasure of meeting and conversing with Patricia Macias. At publishing conventions, Patricia is known as the wife of author Ben Saenz. But back home in El Paso, she is more frequently referred to as "Your Honor."

As I wandered the exhibition halls at Book Expo, I frequently got the chance to catch up with old friends in the publishing industry. Many of the women I've known for years who are employed by the large publishing houses now have titles like "President & Publisher" or "Vice President and Associate Publisher." They not only have the positions; they have the power that accompanies those titles.

I also had the opportunity at Book Expo to chat briefly with my favorite member of the United States Senate. I feel so fortunate to be represented by Barbara Boxer who, like me, grew up in New York and moved westward. When we first elected Barbara to the US Senate in 1992, having her join Diane Feinstein there in representing California, it was the first time in US history that two women Senators were representing the same state at the same time.

Myra Bradwell would have though that it was long past time.

"In 1869, Mrs. Bradwell passed the Illinois bar exam with high honors and turned in her application to practice law. Though she easily qualified, she was turned down because she was a married woman. She filed a lawsuit, but the Illinois Supreme Court turned her down too, saying that her sex was 'a sufficient reason for not granting this license.'
"In one of the nation's first sex discrimination cases she appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. But America's top court had a different view than she did. 'Man is, or should be, woman's protector and defender,' the Court wrote in 1873. 'The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life.' It concluded: 'The paramount destiny and mission of woman [is] to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator.' "

It does not require looking back a hundred and something years to the life of Myra Bradwell (who, we learn, persevered to become America's first female lawyer) in order to recall when things were really unfair for women in America. I grew up a youngster not all THAT long ago, in a world where women didn't have the same opportunities as men to go to college, didn't have the same opportunities as men to work in many fields, to attain the highest positions in business, government, or education, to get paid the same money for the same work, and sure as heck didn't have the same athletic opportunities as their male counterparts.

As recalled in LET ME PLAY by Karen Blumenthal, it was in 1964 (when I turned nine, the same year the Beatles first came to America), that a Southern segregationist in Congress unintentionally played an important role in promoting women's rights when he "proposed adding the word 'sex' to the section [of the Civil Rights Act of 1964], so that it would forbid job discrimination against women as well as blacks." Congressman Howard W. Smith of Virginia was figuring that adding such an amendment would cause the male-dominated Congress to quickly sink the entire Act including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that the historic Civil Rights legislation would create. That Smith's plan backfired and the legislation passed meant for the first time in our history that it was illegal to pay a woman differently than a man employed in the same position as she.

"State universities in Virginia had turned away 21,000 women in the early 1960s; during the same time not a single man was turned away."

While the author takes us back to the 1800s and forward to the 1960s in setting the stage, the overwhelming focus of her fascinating and important book about women in America is on the fight for passage of and subsequent fights over enforcement of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, as well as the far-reaching changes in our country that resulted from that landmark legislation.

Blumenthal's well-documented story of Title IX is interspersed with illuminating profiles and photos of notable twentieth century female athletes who got badly cheated by being born in the backward days of the earlier 1900s, along with great profiles of the federal legislative heroes responsible for Title IX passage, and a terrific assortment of strips from Doonsbury, Tank McNamara, Peanuts and other daily comics and political cartoons that shed light on the legislation and the issues behind it.

"At the University of Georgia the budget for women's sports grew to $120,000 in 1978 from $1,000 in 1973, but the men received $2.5 million. Among the differences: The men on the golf team got all the golf balls they needed. Women golfers got one for each competitive round they played."

If the words of the "stupid white men" on the Supreme Court in the 1870s seem like something from the Dark Ages, readers will discover that the ignorance of those words is easily matched by what Ronald Reagan and his minions did to try and destroy Title IX in the 1980s. I can't imagine any woman who's aware of what Reagan and Bush One carried out in those years not gagging over the current President's recent words that "We are blessed to live in a Nation, and a world, that have been shaped by the will, the leadership, and the vision of Ronald Reagan." I'd say there's a serious lack of vision when you've got your head in the place that Reagan obviously had his when it came to women's rights.

But now the question is, is the battle finally won?

When we consider what portion of Congress and Senate seats are currently filled by the majority gender in America, when we look at what portion of the CEOs of Fortune 500 corporations are female, or when we look at the gender of the Presidents of the nation's most distinguished universities, we must conclude that there is a long way to go.

A report released by the AAUW back when this week's high school graduates were in kindergarten found that "boys' expectations were built up while girls' were whittled back." That's THIS generation, not mine or a previous generation.

And lest anyone suggest the glass half-filled attitude, I'd hasten to suggest that they consider trading places and then claim that things are moving along quickly enough.

Edith Green, a major figure in the story, was fond of the saying: "The trouble with every generation is that they haven't read the minutes of the last meeting." Thanks to Karen Blumenthal, we now have an accurate set of minutes available from a pivotal episode in recent American history.

A great overview of a law that changed womens' lives.......2005-06-13

Karen Blumenthal'a latest young-readers' book, LET ME PLAY is a behind-the-scenes look at how Title IX changed the cultural landscape for American women.

Just because this book is intended for a younger audience does not make it simplistic reading. I consider myself pretty informed about political and social topics, yet I had little idea that Title IX does not just cover equality in sporting opportunities. Title IX, the brainchild of late Congresswoman Edith Green, actually mandates that schools may not limit the educational opportunities of students based on gender--and that includes admissions policies and access to classes. Title IX is the reason that half of all law students and medical students today are women.

What a huge change from the early 1960s, the era in which Blumenthal opens the book with a description of swimmer Donna De Verona. The 13-year-old swimmer, long denied opportunities to participate in other sports she loved, finally decided to become a swimmer. Not only did she excel, but she became the most decorated high school swimmer in the United States. She won two Olympic gold medals and the adoration of the press. Then she graduated, and...nothing. No scholarships, no endorsements, no interest. Here was an 18-year-old brimming with talent and she hit a dead end because there simply were no rewards for women athletes.

At the time De Verona was facing her bleak future, women all over the country were confounded by colleges that had strict admissions quotas. Many schools refused to enroll women in science and math classes. And legislators could get away with citing the need for "delicate" females to leave educational spaces open for men, who would be the "breadwinners."

Things changed, and they changed quickly. A little too quickly for institutions such as Harvard University, which comes off poorly in this book. These stodgy and hidebound schools tried their hardest to keep women from upsetting their little alumni-donation applecart (women alumni were said not to give money to the colleges). Coaches went ballistic when they realized they'd have to share space and dollars with female athletes. And shrill voices predicted shared locker rooms and the end of the feminine mystique.

But then came Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs and the famous "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match. It captured the imagination of the nation and a generation was galvanized to not allow women second-class status any longer.

Now, here we are in 2005 and the world has changed for the better. Title IX is still controversial with football coaches and a few other macho types who'd like all the money and attention focused on men. But America has taken to female soccer players (Mia Hamm), tennis favorites (the Williams sisters), basketball players (too many to mention) and also with female doctors and lawyers. It's all part of the current cultural landscape and there's no going back.

Blumenthal does a great job bringing the law to life by providing mamny break-out boxes with stories of female athletes and legislators that made a difference. Would you believe Caspar Weinberger, Richard Nixon's conservative head of the old department of Health, Education and Welfare, was instrumental in getting Title IX signed and implemented? Can you believe that Nixon signed it? All these stories are true and come to vivid life in Blumenthal's straightforward style of storytelling.

She doesn't pull any punches and she shouldn't have to. What was unfair needed to be rectified. Today's kids who are growing up in a nearly egalitarian society need to know that they are standing on the shoulders of some pretty courageous and forward-thinking human beings.

I recommend that if you have a daughter, niece, grandchild, little sister, or just that cute neighbor girl down the street, this book would make an excellent addition to her library.

The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century America

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The search for Prophets in Early America.
A Fascinating Microcosm of the Burned-Over District
Wondering About Christianity
Brilliant!
Extraordinary

The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century America
Paul E. Johnson , and Sean Wilentz
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0195098358

Book Description

In the autumn of 1834, New York City was awash with rumors of a strange religious cult operating nearby, centered around a mysterious, self-styled prophet named Matthias. It was said that Matthias the Prophet was stealing money from one of his followers; then came reports of lascivious sexual relations, based on odd teachings of matched spirits, apostolic priesthoods, and the inferiority of women. At its climax, the rumors transformed into legal charges, as the Prophet was arrested for the murder of a once highly-regarded Christian gentleman who had fallen under his sway. By the time the story played out, it became one of the nation's first penny-press sensations, casting a peculiar but revealing light on the sexual and spiritual tensions of the day. In The Kingdom of Matthias, the distinguishd historians Paul Johnson and Sean Wilentz brilliantly recapture this forgotten story, imbuing their richly researched account with the dramatic force of a novel. In this book, the strange tale of Matthias the Prophet provides a fascinating window into the turbulent movements of the religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening--movements which swept up great numbers of evangelical Americans and gave rise to new sects like the Mormons. Into this teeming environment walked a down-and-out carpenter named Robert Matthews, who announced himself as Matthias, prophet of the God of the Jews. His hypnotic spell drew in a cast of unforgettable characters--the meekly devout businessman Elijah Pierson, who once tried to raise his late wife from the dead; the young attractive Christian couple, Benjamin Folger and his wife Ann (who seduced the woman-hating Prophet); and the shrewd ex-slave Isabella Van Wagenen, regarded by some as "the most wicked of the wicked." None was more colorful than the Prophet himself, a bearded, thundering tyrant who gathered his followers into an absolutist household, using their money to buy an elaborate, eccentric wardrobe, and reordering their marital relations. By the time the tensions within the kingdom exploded into a clash with the law, Matthias had become a national scandal. In the hands of Johnson and Wilentz, the strange tale of the Prophet and his kingdom comes vividly to life, recalling scenes from recent experiences at Jonestown and Waco. They also reveal much about a formative period in American history, showing the connections among rapid economic change, sex and race relations, politics, popular culture, and the rich varieties of American religious experience.

Customer Reviews:

The search for Prophets in Early America........2005-09-04

Fundamentalism whether Christian or Moslem always breaks out the nut cases. So it was with Christian Fundamentalism in the 1820s and 1830s of the United States. Christianity is undergoing a revival and various creeds are arguing about what is the one true version. Up through the ranks come the likes of Pierson and Matthews who dream of the old days where women obey men. They recreate a small kingdom (only a house with several families) with a head patriach. Matthews becomes King Matthias and makes the decisions in his kingdom. He selects another man's wife as his servant and allocates the financial resources for his kingdom. He is in fact a cult leader. His actions may have resulted in a old man not getting proper medical treatment and then dying. The civil authorities take him on and prosecute him, whereby he loses much of his power.
I didn't know the history of this affair. It seems rather mild by today's standards. The book is an OK read.

A Fascinating Microcosm of the Burned-Over District.......2002-01-27

In this work, Paul Johnson has taken a relatively small and unknown event and used it to illustrate not only an interesting event but also an interesting perspective on the Burned-Over District as a whole. It touches on everything from sexual corruption to radical doctrinal innovations. The Burned-Over district saw the beginning of numerous religious movements such as Mormonism, Adventism, Christian Scientists, numerous smaller religions that did not survive, and even significant political movements such as Antimasonry.

This book is the story of one of those movements. The prologue introduces Matthias as he went to Kirtland to visit with the Mormon Prophet, Joseph Smith. While this event occurred near the end of Matthias’ activity, it is obvious that he stole many of his ideas from Joseph Smith. Matthias initiated the practice of the washing of feet which was common to both the followers of Joseph Smith and Ellen White. He also believed that the truth of the Gospel had fallen from the earth shortly after the time of Christ another Mormon belief. In addition, he had a sword which he claimed was ancient similar to Smith’s sword of Laban, as well as naming the Priesthood after the order of Melchezidek. Likewise, his early mentor Mordecai Noah taught that the Indians were actually a branch of the Israelites which is a central idea found in the Book of Mormon. All of these ideas came out before 1830 when Matthias began his activity.

The most humorous part of this history is the anecdotes that relate to Matthias’ enemies trying to shave off his beard. Johnson has done an excellent job condensing all the most relevant information in this short work. The Kingdom of Matthias is an enjoyable read and a must for anyone interested in this interesting period in American religious history.

Wondering About Christianity.......2001-06-08

I did too. I read this book with an amazement on how basic Bible priniples can me misused to the detriment of oneself and others around them. Please read this book to understand the confusion that enslaves so many Christians. If you truly seeking God, you that they way they tried to find it in this book is not the way to find him.

Brilliant!.......2000-04-03

This is one of the exquisite books that I have read about this time. And to the writer "Orrin Judd", how dare you be such a anti-intellectual dunce? Just by holding on to the case of the Lewinsky/Clinton trial (which by the way Wilentz and Berman wrote before this happened) and other inane right-winged republican comments, if they are even worty of any name other than trash. They remark on this book as something it is far from being, a peice of garbage that can merely be thrown away as litter. As for the book itself, this is a masterpeice with pen and ink, wonderfully capturing the era. It goes behind the mind of this engrossing man and period, and includes people, such as Soujourner Truth, that were known later on, after the period the book was written. It just so awefully captures all the details and facts behind this, but still making it enjoyable. I reccomend this book highly, and give it 5 out of 5 stars. And to any creep, such as Orrin Judd, who thinks otherwise, then just consider this book one more time, the brilliance of it and the fabulous authors (Paul Berman and Sean Wilentz) who made the making of this book possible.

Extraordinary.......2000-03-20

One of the best books I've ever read about American history. THIS SHOULD BE A MOVIE!

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Foundational Work in Gender History

Gender and the Politics of History
Joan Wallach Scott
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0231118570

Book Description

Winner, in the original edition, of the 1989 Joan Kelly Prize of the American Historical Association, this landmark work from a renowned feminist historian is a trenchant critique of women's history and gender inequality. Exploring topics ranging from language and gender to the politics of work and family, Gender and the Politics of History is a crucial interrogation of the uses of gender as a tool for cultural and historical analysis.

The revised edition -- in addition to providing a new generation of readers with access to a classic text in feminist theory and history -- reassesses the book's fundamental topic: the category of gender. In provocatively arguing that gender no longer serves to destabilize our understanding of sexual difference, the new preface and new chapter open a critical dialogue with the original book.

Customer Reviews:

Foundational Work in Gender History.......2001-07-20

Joan Scott's "Gender and the Politics of History" is one of the landmark books in the field of gender history. What is gender history, you ask? To a large degree, that's a question this book is trying to answer. This book can be regarded as an explanation of *what* gender history is (as Scott defines it, at any rate), why it's important, and how it can be done.

Essentially, the book is a set of collected essays organized around the idea of "gender and the politics of history". The first few essays are polemical/theoretical-- and in them, Scott puts forth her argument as to what gender is and why it's an important category of historical analysis. In many ways, these are the most important essays in this volume-- and I *highly* recommend them as a primer to folks who are interested in learning more about why historians are now talking about "gender". In a nutshell, Scott argues that that one of the most fundamenal ways in which people, in all times and plaes, have organized their intellectual/cultural/political world has been through the use of gender-- and that historians should treat gender as a fundamental category of historical analysis-- along with class, nationality, etc. In making this argument, Scott carefully distinguishes between what she calls "gender" (i.e. by which she means the network of arbitrary and socially constructed meanings, ideas, and assumptions that are attributed to masculinity and feminity *and* the way in which these meanings are deployed in everyday life and discourse) and mere "sex" (mere biological/anatomical distinction between men and women). This is subtle point, but it's an essential one-- and it has many important implications for Scott's view of gender history. Of especial note, it means that she understands writing about the history of gender to be a specific kind of intellectual/cultural history-- she is *not* talking about merely writing the social history of women. For her, gender is an idea that gets used in discourse because it involves very basic, and highly value-laden assumptions-- and the task of the gender historian is to understand *how* and *why* it has been used and changed. Scott thus sharply distinguishes what she would call "gender history" from the so-called "women's history" that was pioneered back in the 70s (whose main emphasis was to recount how women had been dominated and abused in the past and to correct the errors of previous historians who had ignored the contributions and experiences of women).

The remainder of the essays fall into three groups. One pair of essays are historiographical-- they are methodological critiques of two of the most seminal works on English labor history: E.P. Thompson's "The Making of the English Working Class" and Gareth Stedman Jones' "Languages of Class". Though Scott recognizes-- and lauds-- the contributions of both of these works, she also notes that they ignore the role that notions of gender played in the formation of working class identities and politics. She also suggests how their descriptions of the 19th century English class would be different if they *had* considered gender as a factor.

The next set of essays are case studies in how gender can be used to explore different issues pertaining to 19th century French labor history. While the actual arguments here aren't probably going to be interesting to anyone but other labor historians, these essays are more valuable as illustrations of how Scott's methodology can actually be used in practice. The variety of sources she uses in these essays (including several whose use of gendered categories is subtle) shows just how powerful, and useful, a tool that gender analysis can be in the writing of history (labor history, at any rate), regardless of the source material.

The final pair of essays are more concered with "historians" today than with the past. In one, Scott address the famed sexual discrimination trial against Sears in which both sides hired femal labor historians to testify about the history of sexual discrimination. In this, Scott shows how their own claims were shaped by notions of gender-- notions that they did not consciously articulate, but which seemed to lay in the background as unstated assumptions. The final essay has to do with how one might try to deconstruct the "false opposition" that our own contemporary value system has established between the notions of equality and difference-- particularly in the field of legal rights and opportunities.

Overall, this is an important, thoughtful, and extremely influential book. I *highly* recommend it to all historians or would-be historians-- and I'd especially recommend it to anyone who's really not sure what gender history is supposed to be or why anyone would want to do it. I could make a few criticisms of some small details (e.g. pointing out the title probably should be "Gender, Class, and the Politics of History" or "Gender, Labor, and the Politics of History" to reflect the fact that's Scott's primary interest is in applying gender theory to the field of labor history-- or that a lot of her criticisms of straw-men like "conventional labor history" and "traditional intellectual history" are unfair), but those really are minor nitpicks in an otherwise eye-opening and profoundly important work.

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