This definitive Reader presents a coherent, comprehensive, comparative, and much-needed collective history of women’s activism throughout the world.

Including key pieces on the history of feminism from an international group of scholars, the book charts feminists’ attempts to restore a balance of power between the sexes against a backdrop of huge cultural, social and political transitions across the world. The collection covers the period from the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789 – a turning point that gave rise to practical efforts to embody principles of rights, liberty, and equality on behalf of women as well as men – up until the end of World War II. The chapters reach out well beyond Europe and the Americas to examine the history of feminisms in Japan, India, China, the Middle East and Australasia. 

This diverse body of material is drawn together through a comprehensive general introduction, and individual section introductions. The chapters are also supported by a global timeline of events, and there is a bibliography of further reading. 

Contributors include Padma Anagol, Marilyn J. Boxer, Jacqueline R. DeVries, Ellen Carol DuBois, Louise Edwards, Ellen L. Fleischmann, Rochelle Goldberg Ruthchild, Patricia Grimshaw, Inger Hammar, Nancy Hewitt, Francesca Miller, Barbara Molony, Karen Offen, Florence Rochefort, Leila J. Rupp, Sandra Stanley Holton, Anne Summers, Ann Taylor Allen, Angela Woollacott and Susan Zimmermann.