Women, Gender and Enlightenment (PDF)

JEAN BLOCH Senior Lecturer in French, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
PHILIP CARTER Publication Editor, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
ARIANNE CHERNOCK Assistant Professor of Writing, George Washington University, USA
ANNA CLARK Professor of History, University of Minnesota, USA
NORMA CLARKE Lecturer in English, Kingston University, UK
MICHELE COHEN Professor in Humanities, Richmond, the American International University in London, UK
SUZANNE DESAN Professor of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
ELIZABETH EGER Lecturer in English, King's College, London, UK
PAULA FINDLEN Ubaldo Pierotti Professor of Italian History, Stanford University, UK
CAROLINE FRANKLIN Reader in English, University of Wales, UK
DENA GOODMAN Professor of History and Women's Studies, University of Michigan, USA
FELICIA GORDON Senior Research Associate, Anglia Polytechnic University, Cambridge, UK
HARRIET GUEST Professor, Department of English and Related Literature, University of York, USA
CARLA HESSE Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley, USA
ROBIN HOWELLS Professor of French, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK
LYNN HUNT Eugen Weber Professor of Modern European History, UCLA, UK
SARAH HUTTON Professor of Early Modern Studies, Middlesex University, UK
VIVIEN JONES Professor of Eighteenth-Century Gender and Culture, School of English, Leeds University, UK
PHYLLIS MACK Lecturer in History and Women's Studies, Rutgers University, USA
JENNY MANDER Senior Lecturer, Department of French, University of Cambridge, UK
MARY CATHERINE MORAN Lecturer, Columbia University, USA
KAREN O'BRIEN Professor of English Literature, University of Warwick, UK
CLARISSA CAMPBELL ORR Senior Lecturer in History, Anglia Polytechnic University, UK
RUTH PERRY Professor of Literature, MIT, USA
MONICA BOLUFER PERUGA Cultural Historian
JANE RENDALL Honorary Fellow, History Department, University of York, UK
JOHN ROBERTSON Lecturer in History, Oxford

'Women, Gender, and Enlightenment is one of those rare collections that has it all. Combining searching historiographical essays with scholarly discussions of specific authors, this volume has an exceptionally wide reach, covering questions of sex, gender and politics as they emerged in Enlightenment France, England, Spain, Italy, Scotland and the American Colonies. But thanks to the authoritative introductions to each section and to the two concluding essays that take stock of the entire volume, Women, Gender, and Enlightenment does not feel uneven or miscellaneous but is instead animated by a spirit of collaboration. A marvellous and compelling book.' - Claudia L Johnson, author of Equivocal Beings: Politics, Gender and Sentimentality in the 1790s

'The most comprehensive, diverse and stimulating account of women and gender in any era: an astonishing collective achievement'. - John Brewer, author of The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century

'The cumulative effect of this volume is stunning, in part because the repetitions and contradictions do at least highlight the different ways in which events, ideas and personalities can be interpreted, depending on the lens applied. A respect for multiple perspectives, an unwillingness to scorn the past, an interest in the many routes by which one can arrive at a given place - all these things make this volume a true work of collaboration and a landmark contribution to historical scholarship.' - TLS

'This book is a marvellous treasure house of ideas and scholarship: the editors have produced one of the most significant academic works of the past 30 years...The particular significance of Sarah Knott and Barbara Taylor's collection is that it makes us think, in the most detailed and precise way, about an issue that in the view of many of us in the social sciences and the humanities is of central importance. The question is that of the relationship of gender to