Toward an Intellectual History of Women: Essays by Linda K. Kerber

by Linda K. Kerber

Book Overview

As a leading historian of women, Linda K. Kerber has played an instrumental role in the radical rethinking of American history over the past two decades. The maturation and increasing complexity of studies in women's history are widely recognized, and in this remarkable collection of essays, Kerber's essential contribution to the field is made clear. In this volume is gathered some of Kerber's finest work. Ten essays address the role of women in early...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807846546
• ISBN13: 9780807846544
• Release Date: May 1997
• Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Cosmic Women

Even a brief reading will enlighten and inform mankind that women are not necessarily rooted to the cultural and traditional adaptations that men have defined throughout history, and that women do think. Often they think about entirely different things than men think about, as we have all suspected but not proven, but in the context of that thought may be found the entire history of women that only a female's perspective can appreciate. Since the dichotomy of men and women is so different, knowing what each thinks is essential to making harmony in the world. Despite the ritual approval that women have historically presented to the world as agreement with men, most women give only tacit approval, and harbor their own thoughts of what is important for the world, for themselves, and for their families. Without seeking, men are unlikely to find out what women think. Perhaps that is the real mystery about gender relations that is reciprocal and deserves greater attention. Bravo for Linda Kerber to identify that women have an intellectual history, and to encourage greater enlightenment about it. It is an essential first step to discovering what women are really all about - discovering the cosmic woman within.

Women, founding fathers, and laws meet brilliant scholar

This collection of essays on women in [revolutionary] American politics and life, beginning with Kerber's introductory essay on her own life, and how she came to be a scholar and historian in the 1960s is absolutely spell-binding. Not dry history at all, but living people facing difficult choices -- with women's position in the early republic slowly worked out for us, we can see how women in an apparently revolutionary society were sent to the back of the line, along with African- Americans, to wait for changing notions of human potential. The individual stories, and the analysis are clear and meaningful.