A History of Women in the West: Renaissance and Enlightenment paradoxes

Download or read book A History of Women in the West: Renaissance and Enlightenment paradoxes written by Georges Duby and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 622 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume III of A History of Women draws a richly detailed picture of women in early modern Europe, considering them in a context of work, marriage, and family. At the heart of this volume is "woman" as she appears in a wealth of representations, from simple woodcuts and popular literature to master paintings; and as the focal point of a debate--sometimes humorous, sometimes acrimonious--conducted in every field: letters, arts, philosophy, the sciences, and medicine. Against oppressive experience, confining laws, and repetitious claims about female "nature," women took initiative by quiet maneuvers and outright dissidence. In conformity and resistance, in image and reality, women from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries emerge from these pages in remarkable diversity.