+353-1-416-8900REST OF WORLD
+44-20-3973-8888REST OF WORLD
1-917-300-0470EAST COAST U.S
1-800-526-8630U.S. (TOLL FREE)

Gender in History. Global Perspectives. Edition No. 3

  • Book

  • 304 Pages
  • November 2021
  • Region: Global
  • John Wiley and Sons Ltd
  • ID: 5837064

A concise yet comprehensive account of the roles and influences of gender over the millennia, featuring new and updated content throughout  

Gender in History: Global Perspectives, Third Edition, explores the construction and evolution of gender in many of the world’s cultures from the Paleolithic era to the COVID pandemic of the twenty-first century. Broad in geographic and topical scope, this comprehensive volume discusses the ways families, religions, social hierarchies, politics, work, education, art, sexuality, and other issues are linked to various conceptions of gender. 

Now organized chronologically rather than topically, this extensively revised edition presents a wealth of up-to-date information based on the scholarship of the last decade. New and expanded chapters offer insights on the connections between gender and key events and trends in world history, including domestication and the development of agriculture, the growth of cities and larger-scale political structures, the spread of world religions, changing ideas of race, class, and sexuality, colonialism and imperialism, capitalism, wars, revolutions, and more. Written by a distinguished scholar in the field of women's and gender history, this third edition of Gender in History: 

  • Examines how gender roles were shaped by family life, religious traditions, various other institutions, and how the institutions were influenced by gender 
  • Considers why gender variations developed in different cultures and in diverse social, ethnic, and racial groups within a single culture 
  • Addresses ideas in different cultures that shaped both informal societal norms and formalized laws 
  • Explores debates about the origins of patriarchy, the development of complex gender hierarchies, and contemporary movements for social change 
  • Discusses the gender implications of modern issues including the global pandemic and ongoing cultural and economic shifts 
  • Includes an accessible introduction to key theoretical and methodological issues and an instructor’s website site with visual and written original sources  

Gender in History: Global Perspectives, Third Edition, is essential reading for undergraduate and graduate students in courses such as those on women’s history, women in world history, and gender in world history, and a valuable supplement for general survey courses within History and Women’s and Gender Studies programs. 

Table of Contents

List of Figures viii

Acknowledgments ix

About the Companion Website x

1 Introduction 1

Women’s and Gender History 1

World and Global History 4

Gender, Sex, and Sexuality 6

Difference and Intersectionality 9

Theory in History 11

Gender History as a Field 15

Structure of the Book 17

2 Ideas, Ideals, Norms, and Laws 23

The Nature and Roles of Men and Women 26

Binaries 32

Motherhood and Fatherhood 36

Ideologies, Norms, and Laws Prescribing Gender Inequity 39

Ideologies of Egalitarianism 42

3 Early Human History (to 3000 bce) 53

Early Hominids 54

Homo Sapiens 58

Paleolithic Society and Spirituality 61

Domestication 66

Agricultural Societies 68

The Origins of Patriarchy 72

4 Ancient Cities and States (3000 bce-600 bce) 85

Cities and Social Hierarchies 86

Writing 91

Families and Households 96

Work 103

Religions in the Ancient Near East 106

Hereditary Dynasties and Female Rulers 111

5 Classical Cultures (500 bce-500 ce) 120

Family Life in the Classical Cultures of Eurasia 121

Sexuality in Classical Eurasia 127

Philosophy and Religion in East Asia: Confucianism and Daoism 130

Religious Traditions of South Asia: Hinduism and Buddhism 132

Religious Traditions in the Mediterranean: Christianity 139

Education and Culture 143

6 The Middle Millennium (500 ce-1500 ce) 153

Families, Households, and Kin in Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific 154

Religious Traditions Transmitted Orally 158

State Based Societies in the Americas 162

Courts and Courtly Culture 164

The Rise and Spread of Islam 168

Europe and the Mediterranean 174

Cities and the Gendering of Work 177

7 The Early Modern World (1500 ce-1800 ce) 184

Economic Developments 185

The Renaissance 191

Religious Transformations 197

Families and Race 200

Representations of Conquest and Colonialization 206

Women and Politics 208

8 The Modern World (1800 ce-2021 ce) 220

Industrialization 221

Imperialism 227

Nineteenth-century Movements for Social Change 229

Modern Sexuality 236

Wars, Revolutions, and Political Change 243

The Industrial and Postindustrial Economy 251

Families in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries 258

Cultural Changes in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries 264

Afterword 277

Index 282

Authors

Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.