The Prospect Before Her: A History of Women in Western Europe, 1500-1800

The Prospect Before Her: A History of Women in Western Europe, 1500-1800





How did women in 16th century western Europe cope with the consequences of being considered inherently sinful--as well as being legally and economically subordinate to their fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons? What might become of a woman unable to raise a dowry? What were the difficulties faced by spinsters, single mothers, and widows? In this brilliant investigation into the lives of women from all social strata, Hufton leads us from poor-house to palazzo, from cradle to grave, illuminating what it meant to be female in western Europe during the years 1500 to 1800.

"A major effort at synthesis...Ms. Hufton has a keen eye for the extraordinary interest in ordinary detail."--New York Times Book ReviewThe great insight of social history is that the record of the lives of Great Men offers a skewed vision of human experience. Similarly women's history seeks to address the unbalanced written record of humanity. Olwen Hufton, the author of several previous studies concerned with women and the history of ideas, has crafted a descriptive history of the lives of a wide variety of women over the 300-year period from 1500 to 1800. Her work is neither an act of prescription nor a narrative written as a means to empowerment. Rather, the details testify to the inequality of women's lives. Hufton seeks no single representative woman whose story conveys the experience of women writ large, but instead offers appropriately complicated interpretations of the diverse women she discusses.









List Price: $ 18.00



Price: $ 10.98









Find More Westerns Products