Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks - Gender in history: global perspectives

Praise for the first edition

Wiesner-Hanks... accomplishes a near-impossible feat a review of what is known about the construction of gender and the character of womens lives in all known cultures over the course of human history.... Theoretically sophisticated and doing justice to the historical and cross-cultural record, yet assimilable by students...

Choice

Professor Merry Wiesner-Hanks draws on this wealth of scholarship and her own research to provide a welcome overview of gender in global history from prehistory to date... I would recommend Gender in History as a set text for all students beginning a degree in history, alongside more conventional fare like E. H. Carrs What is History? It should not be restricted to those students who select a course in which the main topic of study is gender. For, crucially, it demonstrates that gender is as significant as social class, race and ethnicity as a category of historical analysis, as well as providing novice historians with many insights into understanding history. This is not to ignore that it is also of value to more experienced historians, particularly because of its thematically arranged suggestions for further reading.

Reviews in History

Merry Wiesner-Hanks has produced a judicious and learned book. Gender in History brilliantly explores the influence of gender constructs in political, social, economic, and cultural affairs. The remarkable cultural, geographical, and chronological range of Wiesner-Hanks research is matched only by the sophistication, nuance, and clarity of her analysis. This book offers a rare and valuable global perspective on gender roles in human history.

Jerry H. Bentley,

University of Hawaii

For my premodern/postmodern womens reading group

This second edition first published 2011

Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks 2011

Edition history: 1e (Blackwell Publishing, 2001)

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wiesner, Merry E., 1952

Gender in history: global perspectives/Merry Wiesner-Hanks. - 2nd ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4051-8995-8 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Sex roleHistory. 2. Social history. I. Title.

HQ1075.W526 2011

305.309dc22

2010003198

Chronological Table of Contents

The division of time into historical eras, a process termed periodization, is highly contested in world history: many period labels contain implicit or explicit value judgments; developments that historians have seen as marking a division between one period and the next occurred at widely varying times around the world; and important aspects of life often continued across many periods with relatively little change. Thus every system of periodization is problematic, but it is difficult to give them up entirely, so this chronological table of contents uses the large divisions of time that are most common in world history courses. It does not include references to chapter 4, which is organized topically, nor does it include every brief comment. I have included this table to make it easier to read this book in conjunction with courses that are organized chronologically.

Paleolithic Era (to 9500 BCE) 1317, 5560, 10911

Neolithic Era (9500 BCE-3000 BCE) 1720, 601

Ancient agricultural societies (3000 BCE-600 BCE) 259, 612, 11315, 13741

Classical societies (600 BCE-600 CE) 2933, 635, 11522, 14150, 1708, 195202

Postclassical societies (600 CE-1450 CE) 339, 1223, 1267, 17882, 2026

The early modern world (14501750) 3944, 658, 1236, 1515, 2069

The modern world (1750-present) 4550, 6977, 11213, 1289, 15562, 1829, 20918

Acknowledgments

Each book that I have written has encouraged me to range wider chronologically and geographically from my original home base in early modern Germany, which has meant I have entered territories in which I know less and less. Fortunately I have found my scholarly colleagues to be uniformly gracious in sharing their expertise, providing assistance and advice, and often in the process turning from colleagues to friends. For this book I would like to thank Constantin Fasolt, who asked me to write the first edition, and Tessa Harvey, the history editor at Wiley-Blackwell, who encouraged its progress and suggested I write a second edition. Anne Hansen, Susan Kingsley Kent, Jeffrey Merrick, and Susanne Mrozik read drafts of chapters and provided invaluable suggestions. My graduate student Brice Smith combed the library and the web for new materials as I set out to write the second edition; he found so much that we decided the only way to include these was to set up an accompanying website, and in doing so I was assisted by my graduate student Lea Gnat. My thoughts on the issues discussed here have been influenced over the years by a great many people; my list could go on for pages, but I would particularly like to thank Barbara Andaya, Judith Bennett, Jodi Bilinkoff, Renate Bridenthal, David Christian, Elizabeth Cohen, Natalie Zemon Davis, Lisa Di Caprio, Scott Hendrix, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Grethe Jacobsen, Margaret Jolly, Susan Karant-Nunn, JoAnn McNamara, Teresa Meade, Pavla Miller, Mary Elizabeth Perry, Allyson Poska, Diana Robin, Lyndal Roper, Anne Schutte, Bonnie Smith, Hilda Smith, Ulrike Strasser, Susan Stuard, Larissa Taylor, Gerhild Scholz Williams, and Heide Wunder. My husband, Neil, and my sons, Kai and Tyr, have become accustomed to my need to write, and Mom is writing is a normal explanation in our house for its failure to live up to Martha Stewart standards. Finally I would like to thank the present and former members of my womens reading group, which began as one exploring medieval and Renaissance women and now knows no bounds: Margaret Borene, Martha Carlin, Mary Delgado, Shelly Hall, Janet Jesmok, Deirdre Keenan, Gwynne Kennedy, Gretchen Kling, Sandy Stark, and Louise Tesmer. None of us anticipated when we started getting together more than 15 years ago what an important part of our lives those meetings would become. Further on in the book I consider the issue of womens informal communities; the meaning of such groups in the past may be lost to us as they have left no records, but those in the present provide great sustenance, both intellectual and gustatory. This book is thus dedicated to our group.