Barbara Caine

This book reveals the importance of personal letters in the history of European women between the year 1000 and the advent of the telephone. It explores the changing ways that women used correspondence for self-expression and political mobilization over this period, enabling them to navigate the myriad gendered restrictions that limited women’s engagement in the world. Whether written from the medieval cloister, or the renaissance court, or the artisan’s workshop, or the drawing room, letters crossed geographical and social distance and were mobile in ways that women themselves could not always be. Women wrote to govern, to argue, to plead, and to demand. They also wrote to express love and intimacy, and in so doing, to explain and to understand themselves. This book argues that the personal letter was a crucial place for European women’s self-fashioning, and that exploring the history of their letters offers a profound insight into their subjectivity and agency over time.

Forming a critical introduction to the history of women's autobiography from the mid 18th-century to the present, this book analyses the most important changes in women's autobiography, exploring their motivation, context, style, and the role of life experiences. Caine effortlessly segues across three centuries of history: from the emergence of the ‘modern autobiography’ in the 18th-century which laid bare the scandalous lives of ‘fallen women’, to the literary and suffragist autobiographies of the 19th-century to the establishment of feminist publishers in the 20th century and the taboo-shattering autobiographies they produced. The result is a much-needed history, one which provides a different way of thinking about the trajectory of genre information.Caine’s compelling study fills an important gap in the genre of autobiography, by embracing a wide range of women and offering an extensive discussion of the autobiographies of women across the 19th and 20th centuries, making it ideal for classroom use.

Forming a critical introduction to the history of women's autobiography from the mid 18th-century to the present, this book analyses the most important changes in women's autobiography, exploring their motivation, context, style, and the role of life experiences. Caine effortlessly segues across three centuries of history: from the emergence of the ‘modern autobiography’ in the 18th-century which laid bare the scandalous lives of ‘fallen women’, to the literary and suffragist autobiographies of the 19th-century to the establishment of feminist publishers in the 20th century and the taboo-shattering autobiographies they produced. The result is a much-needed history, one which provides a different way of thinking about the trajectory of genre information.Caine’s compelling study fills an important gap in the genre of autobiography, by embracing a wide range of women and offering an extensive discussion of the autobiographies of women across the 19th and 20th centuries, making it ideal for classroom use.

This book reveals the importance of personal letters in the history of European women between the year 1000 and the advent of the telephone. It explores the changing ways that women used correspondence for self-expression and political mobilization over this period, enabling them to navigate the myriad gendered restrictions that limited women’s engagement in the world. Whether written from the medieval cloister, or the renaissance court, or the artisan’s workshop, or the drawing room, letters crossed geographical and social distance and were mobile in ways that women themselves could not always be. Women wrote to govern, to argue, to plead, and to demand. They also wrote to express love and intimacy, and in so doing, to explain and to understand themselves. This book argues that the personal letter was a crucial place for European women’s self-fashioning, and that exploring the history of their letters offers a profound insight into their subjectivity and agency over time.

Looking at the complex relationship between the discipline of history and the writing of lives, this key textbook provides an original and insightful introduction to a growing and increasingly important area of historical scholarship and research. Examining key works that have changed the nature of biography, Barbara Caine also explores the way biographical narrative and life stories have become a central preoccupation for history. Outlining the main features of contemporary historical biography, this is an ideal companion for undergraduate and postgraduate students taking courses on historiography, theory and history, theory and methods, historical methodology, history and life/biographical/autobiographical writing, and life-writing courses on English or creative writing degrees.New to this Edition:- Thoroughly updated throughout- New concluding chapter on history and the individual life, and the place of biography in history

There has been an increasing interest in the meaning and importance of friendship in recent years, particularly in the West. However, the history of friendship, and the ways in which it has changed over time, have rarely been examined. Friendship: A History traces the development of friendship in Europe from the Hellenistic period to today. The book brings together a range of essays that examine the language of friendship and its significance in terms of ethics, social institutions, religious organizations and political alliances. The essays study the works of classical and contemporary authors to explore the role of friendship in Western philosophy. Ranging from renaissance friendships to Christian and secular friendships and from women’s writing to the role of class and sex in friendships, Friendship: A History will be invaluable to students and scholars of social history.

There has been an increasing interest in the meaning and importance of friendship in recent years, particularly in the West. However, the history of friendship, and the ways in which it has changed over time, have rarely been examined. Friendship: A History traces the development of friendship in Europe from the Hellenistic period to today. The book brings together a range of essays that examine the language of friendship and its significance in terms of ethics, social institutions, religious organizations and political alliances. The essays study the works of classical and contemporary authors to explore the role of friendship in Western philosophy. Ranging from renaissance friendships to Christian and secular friendships and from women’s writing to the role of class and sex in friendships, Friendship: A History will be invaluable to students and scholars of social history.

I traditionell akademisk historielitteratur förbinds oftast föreställningar om medborgarskap, rättvisa, nationalism och imperialism med centrala politiska händelser som Franska revolutionen, industrialiseringen eller första världskriget.Europas historia 1780–1920 – Ett genusperspektiv sätter i stället fokus på maskulinitets- och feminitetskategorier och förnyar därmed tolkningen av den europeiska historien. Författarna visar att de politiska processerna rymmer könsvariabler och att både vardags- och familjelivet och den offentliga sfären är strukturerad efter föreställningar om könsskillnader.Vad betyder det att de olika offentliga rummen könsladdades och blev uteslutande manliga? Att kvinnor som var politiskt engagerade sågs som naturvidriga? Vilka nya möjligheter för kvinnlig frigörelse skapade den postrevolutionära tiden?Boken lämpar sig på alla akademiska utbildningar som rymmer ett historiskt perspektiv. Den är systematiskt strukturerad kring teman som identitet, arbete, politik och medborgarskap och behandlar både den privata och den offentliga sfären. Förutom inom historia, idéhistoria och genusvetenskap kan den även användas inom utbildningar i statsvetenskap, ekonomisk historia och sociologi. Det pedagogiska greppet gör att den med fördel också kan läsas av en intresserad allmänhet.

Gendering European History covers the period from the French Revolution to the end of the First World War. Organised both chronologically and thematically, its central theme is the issue of gender and citizenship. The book encompasses the late eighteenth-century revolutionary period, nineteenth-century developments concerning work, urban and domestic life, national politics, gender in the fin de siecle and imperialism, and concludes with the gender crisis of the First World War. Caine and Sluga explore the question of sexual difference in relation to class, ethnicity and race, and the development of key historical debates about identity, work, home, politics, and citizenship in specific national contexts and across Europe. At the same time, they provide readers new to European history with general information about the social and political contexts in which those debates arose. Intended both as an introductory work for tertiary students and one that offers new interpretations for scholars in the field, this study is a synthethis, bringing together the extensive but often fragmented existing literature on gender in European history.It also raises new questions and introduces new sources, particularly in relation to the history of gender and nation-building. The result is a challenging view of the contours of European history in the period from the Enlightenment to the 1920's. Barbara Caine is Professor of History, Monash University, Victoria, Australia. Glenda Sluga is Senior Lecturer in History and Director of European Studies, University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Barbara Caine offers the first complete overview of the history of `modern' English feminism, from the French Revolution through to the advent of Women's Liberation. Her analysis of feminist organizations, debates, and campaigns shows a keen sense of the relationship between feminist thought and actions, and wider social and cultural change. The result is a fascinating study with a new perspective on feminists and feminist traditions, which can be used both as an introductory text and as an interpretative work. Professor Caine examines the complex questions surrounding the concept of a feminist 'tradition', and shows how much the feminism of any particular period related to the years preceding or following it. Though feminism may have lacked the kind of legitimating tradition evident in other forms of political thought, the ghost of Mary Wollstonecraft is seen here as something which all nineteenth- and twentieth-century feminists had to come to terms with. Her story was a constant reminder of the connection between the demand for political and legal rights, and its conflation with the issues of personal and sexual rebellion. Like Mary Wollstonecraft, every woman pioneer into the public arena was faced with assaults on her honour as well as on her intellectual position. Professor Caine also addresses the language of feminism: the introduction and changing meanings of the term `feminist'; the importance of literary representations of women; and the question of how one defines feminism, and establishes boundaries between feminism and the `woman question'. She ends with a discussion of the new emphasis, post-1980s, on the need to think about `feminisms' in the plural, rather than any single kind of feminism.

Barbara Caine's fascinating analysis of feminism in England examines the relationship between feminist thought and actions, and wider social and cultural change over tow centuries. Professor Caine investigates the complex question surrounding the concept of a feminist 'tradition', and shows how much the feminism of any particular period related to the years preceding or following it. Though feminism may have lacked the kind of legitimating tradition evident in other forms of political thought, the ghost of Mary Wollstonecraft was something which all nineteenth- and twentieth-century feminists had to come to terms with. Her story was a constant reminder of the connection between the demand for political and legal rights, and its conflation with the issues of personal and sexual rebellion. Like Wollstonecraft, every woman pioneer into the public arena faced assaults on her honour as well as on her intellectual position. The author also addresses the language of feminism: the introduction and changing meanings of the term 'feminist';the importance of literary representations of women; and the question of how one defines feminism, and establishes boundaries between feminism and the 'woman question'. She ends with a discussion of the new emphasis, post-1980s, on the need to think about 'feminisms' in the plural, rather than any single kind of feminism. analysis of feminist organizations, debates, and campaigns shows a keen sense of the relationship between feminist thought and actions, and wider social and cultural change. The result is a fascinating study with a new perspective on feminists and feminist traditions, which can be used both as an introductory text and as an interpretative work. Professor Caine examines the complex questions surrounding the concept of a feminist 'tradition', and shows how much the feminism of any particular period related to the years preceding or following it. Though feminism may have lacked the kind of legitimating tradition evident in other forms of political thought, the ghost of Mary Wollstonecraft is seen here as something which all nineteenth- and twentieth-century feminists had to come to terms with. Her story was a constant reminder of the connection between the demand for political and legal rights, and its conflation with the issues of personal and sexual rebellion. Like Mary Wollstonecraft, every woman pioneer into the public arena was faced with assaults on her honour as well as on her intellectual position. Professor Caine also addresses the language of feminism: the introduction and changing meanings of the term `feminist'; the importance of literary representations of women; and the question of how one defines feminism, and establishes boundaries between feminism and the `woman question'. She ends with a discussion of the new emphasis, post-1980s, on the need to think about `feminisms' in the plural, rather than any single kind of feminism.

This is a study of Victorian feminism which focuses on four leading feminists: Emily Davies, Frances Power Cobbe,Josephine Butler, and Millicent Garrett Fawcett. This approach enables Barbara Caine to uncover the range, diversity, and complexity of Victorian feminism, and to examine the relationship between personal experience and feminist commitment. Professor Caine sets her carefully researched biographical studies of the four women, each with her own fascinating history, in the context of the Victorian feminist movement. She explores the ideas and strategies of feminists in the late nineteenth century, analysing the tensions which arose as they sought to achieve their aims. In particular, she traces the complex relationship between party politics and feminist commitment. Barbara Caine's insight into the vision and beliefs of these Victorian feminists is balanced by her scholarly understanding of the society within which they worked. She gives us vivid and perceptive portraits of four very different individuals, who nevertheless shared a commitment to improving the lot of women.

Destined to be Wives The Sisters of Beatrice Webb