Published in 2003
400 pages
Marilyn French was a novelist and feminist. Her books include The Women’s Room, which has been translated into twenty languages; From Eve to Dawn, a History of Women in the World; A Season in Hell; Her Mother’s Daughter; Our Father; My Summer with George; and The Bleeding Heart. She died in 2009.
What is this book about?
From the New York Times–bestselling author: “A rare find: a page-turning, can’t-put-it-down history text.” —Library Journal
Writing about what she calls the “most cheering period in female history,” Marilyn French recounts how nineteenth-century women living under imperialism, industrialization, and capitalism nonetheless organized for their own education, a more equitable wage, and the vote.
Focusing on the United States, Great Britain, and countries in Africa, French argues that capitalism’s success depended on the exploitation and enslavement of huge numbers, including women, but the act of working outside the home alongside other women, rather than in isolation, provided women with the possibility of organizing for emancipation.
“The third volume of her remarkable four-volume survey . . . fascinating insight and detail.” —Publishers Weekly
