Origins Series
By Marilyn French and Margaret Atwood
4.5/5
()
About this series
This volume of New York Times–bestselling author Marilyn French’s monumental history analyzes and evaluates the lives of women in societies around the world between feudal times and the French Revolution. Drawing upon fifteen years of collaboration with a team of researchers and prominent historians, the volume opens with fascinating chapters comparing medieval Europe and Japan, disparate cultures which nevertheless shared traditions of male dominated aggression and competitiveness.
French then shows how, in Europe, this tradition led to colonialism and imperialism, and the horrific subjugation of indigenous societies, just as women were subjugated in the conquerors’ home countries. As French makes clear in this impassioned women’s history, only with the French Revolution did the political force women exerted powerfully change the course of history.
“French gives us grand theory at its best, wading through copious amounts of scholarly data on the histories of civilizations and offering up, in readable prose, an important synthesis.” —Library Journal
Titles in the series (4)
- From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World Volume I: From Prehistory to the First Millennium
The first volume of the New York Times–bestselling author’s monumental and unprecedented history: “Consistently thought-provoking” (The New York Review of Books). The internationally celebrated author of The Women’s Room, Marilyn French spent over fifteen years with a team of researchers and prominent historians examining women’s lives and activities in civilizations and societies spanning the ages. Beginning in prehistory, Origins moves on to examine women’s lives in ancient Egypt, China, India, Peru, Mexico, Greece, and Rome. In her reconstruction of wars, laws, and other activities affecting both women and men, French also traces the worldviews underpinning them. She also depicts how women’s relationship to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam changed for good and bad over the centuries. “She backs up even her more controversial theories with an impressive accumulation of academically accepted historical, anthropological and sociological sources . . . Written in concise, understated language, this is a significant addition to literature on women’s studies and history.” —Publishers Weekly
- From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World Volume III: Infernos and Paradises: The Triumph of Capitalism in the 19th Century
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
- From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World Volume IV: Revolutions and the Struggles for Justice in the 20th Century
The conclusion of the “remarkable” four-volume history by the New York Times–bestselling author of The Women’s Room (Publishers Weekly). In the twentieth century, women became a force for change, in part through suffrage, and in part through mass organizing. This final volume of Marilyn French’s wide-ranging survey offers a vibrant history of multiple political revolutions as well as the century’s horrors—including genocides and the atom bomb. It ends with a thoughtful investigation into the various indigenous feminist movements throughout the world and asks what these peaceful revolutions might augur for the future. Eschewing easy answers, French suggests that the defining moral moments of the twenty-first century should, and will, build from a global human rights agenda.
- From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World Volume II: The Masculine Mystique from Feudalism to the French Revolution
“Filled with fascinating detail . . . this second volume of French’s massive and valuable work is an example of scholarship and clear vision.” —Publishers Weekly This volume of New York Times–bestselling author Marilyn French’s monumental history analyzes and evaluates the lives of women in societies around the world between feudal times and the French Revolution. Drawing upon fifteen years of collaboration with a team of researchers and prominent historians, the volume opens with fascinating chapters comparing medieval Europe and Japan, disparate cultures which nevertheless shared traditions of male dominated aggression and competitiveness. French then shows how, in Europe, this tradition led to colonialism and imperialism, and the horrific subjugation of indigenous societies, just as women were subjugated in the conquerors’ home countries. As French makes clear in this impassioned women’s history, only with the French Revolution did the political force women exerted powerfully change the course of history. “French gives us grand theory at its best, wading through copious amounts of scholarly data on the histories of civilizations and offering up, in readable prose, an important synthesis.” —Library Journal
Marilyn French
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.
Read more from Marilyn French
Her Mother's Daughter: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Women's Room Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Father: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bleeding Heart: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Season in Hell: A Memoir Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Love Children Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Women of Marilyn French: Her Mother's Daughter, Our Father, and The Bleeding Heart Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
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