Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe

This new edition of Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks's prize-winning survey features significant changes to reflect the newest scholarship in every chapter.

Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks (Author)

9781108496995, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 January 2019

390 pages, 24 b/w illus. 2 maps
23.5 x 15.6 x 2.2 cm, 0.75 kg

'Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks is a master of her craft. This textbook is packed with stimulating information and points for discussion on every page. Geographically and thematically wide-ranging, this remains an unrivaled overview. Issues of sexual identification, race and equality are central to discussions of current societies. This book offers an astonishing guide to their history. Not just relevant for early modernist or history students, this is a book which everyone interested in gender's past and future will enjoy and learn from.' Ulinka Rublack, University of Cambridge

This fourth edition of Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks's prize-winning survey features significant changes to every chapter, designed to reflect the newest scholarship. Global issues have been threaded throughout the book, while still preserving the clear thematic structure of previous editions. Thus readers will find expanded discussions of gendered racial hierarchies, migration, missionaries, and consumer goods. In addition, there is enhanced coverage of recent theoretical directions; the ideas, beliefs, and practices of ordinary people; early industrialization; women's learning, letter writing, and artistic activities; emotions and sentiments; single women and same-sex relations; masculinities; mixed-race and enslaved women; and the life course from birth to death. With geographically broad coverage, including Russia, Scandinavia, the Ottoman Empire, and the Iberian Peninsula, this remains the leading text on women and gender in Europe in this period. Accompanying this essential reading is a completely revised website featuring extensive updated bibliographies, web links, and primary source material.

1. Ideas and laws
Part I. Body: 2. The female life cycle
3. Women's economic role
Part II. Mind: 4. Learning and letters
5. The creation of culture
Part III. Spirit: 6. Religion
7. Witchcraft
8. Gender and power
9. Gender in the colonial world.

Subject Areas: Gender & the law [LAQG], Gender studies: women [JFSJ1], Social & cultural history [HBTB], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], European history [HBJD]