The Prospect Before Her 1500 1800

Already hailed by English critics as "one of the most important works of history to be published since the Second World War, " Olwen Hufton's fascinating and brilliantly learned study begins, in this first of two volumes, with a wide ranging exploration of women's fate in Western Europe from medieval times to the early modern age. of illustrations.

This book is the first history of women to integrate the history of women into general history. In it, Hufton, a distinguished historian and award-winning author, brings together a mass of detailed material on women in early modern Europe.

History of women in western Europe during the years 1500 to 1800, discussing what females of various stations could expect at every stage of life from the time of their birth.

This monumental new book decisively enlarges our understanding of the history of women. Hufton leads readers from poorhouse to palazzo, from cradle to grave, illuminating what it meant to be female in pre-modern Europe. "A major effort at synthesis".--"The New York Times Book Review". "One of the most important works of history since the Second World War".--"The Observer" (London). of illustrations.

History of women in western Europe during the years 1500 to 1800, discussing what females of various stations could expect at every stage of life from the time of their birth.

Not until the eighteenth century was the image of the tender, full-time mother invented. This image retains its power today. Inventing Maternity demonstrates that, despite its association with an increasingly standardized set of values, motherhood remained contested terrain. Drawing on feminist, cultural, and postcolonial theory, Inventing Maternity surveys a wide range of sources—medical texts, political tracts, religious doctrine, poems, novels, slave narratives, conduct books, and cookbooks. The first half of the volume, covering the mid-seventeenth to the late eighteenth centuries, considers central debates about fetal development, pregnancy, breastfeeding, and childbearing. The second half, covering the late eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries, charts a historical shift to the regulation of reproduction as maternity is increasingly associated with infanticide, population control, poverty, and colonial, national, and racial instability. In her introduction, Greenfield provides a historical overview of early modern interpretations of maternity. She concludes with a consideration of their impact on current debates about reproductive rights and technologies, child custody, and the cycles of poverty.