Women in Early Modern England 1550-1720

By Sara Mendelson and Patricia Crawford

Book Overview

This is an original, accessible, and comprehensive survey of life as it was experienced by most Englishwomen during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The authors examine virtually all aspects of women's lives: female life-stages from birth to death; the separate culture of women,
including female friendship and feminist consciousness; the diverse roles of women in the religious and political movements of the day; and the effect of prevailing perceptions of gender differences. Comparisons are made between the makeshift economy of poor women and the occupational identities,
and preoccupations, of the middling and elite classes. This fascinating and well-illustrated book reconstructs the mental and material world of Tudor and Stuart women, and is sure to become the standard text on the subject.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 019820812X
• ISBN13: 9780198208129
• Release Date: February 2000
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 504 Pages
• Weight: 1.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.2" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Women and their multiple lives

I found this book well-written and well-researched. Knowing little more than the obvious knowledge that women were "less than" men during early modern times, this book helped me to see how in certain areas (medecine, politics, child-birth) women did contribute greatly to history. I feel grateful for this thorough research, and it shall certainly prove helpful for my thesis on Early Modern England.

History at its best!

This book is an exciting history of all aspects of the everyday lives of early modern Englishwomen. "Female culture" is my favorite chapter because it shows how resourceful women were, despite patriarchal constraints, in developing their own traditions and bonds of solidarity. The authors even discovered a marriage between two women!

Excellent!

I have the privilege of being a pupil of Patricia Crawford's at the University of Western Australia, so naturally I was interested in reading the product of her colloboration. For a history student this book is marvellous for an introduction into the history of our female ancestors and a welcome relief from those dry products of academia which delight in annoying and perplexing the humble reader with page long sentences, words which I suspect the author has made up and long dry recitations of 'facts'. This is an easy to read and very informative piece of work, which I would highly reccommend for all who are interested in discovering a hidden voice of early modern history - the mighty female. And just in case you're thinking my review may be laced with bias, read this book and you will see that its not.