Abstract

Until recently, histories of women tended to be segregated from the larger historical context. This pioneering volume places the role of women within the history of the interwar years, whenboth the women's and socialist movements became prominent, and raises the key question of how power was distributed between the genders in a historical setting. The emblematic title of this volume highlights the fundamental conception of this comparative study of eleven West European countries: that in the interwar decades two great movements gained in strength, converged, diverged, competed, and cooperated. Each of these movements is viewed as acomplex matrix of organized and unorganized participants. However, by far the most provocative questions deal with gender relations. Central to these are definitions of femininity and masculinity in terms of mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion at the workplace, in the home, and in the political arena. The mystique of the "new woman" in the 1920s and the 1930s challenged traditional notions of gender identity and relations, not the least of which was the redefinition of the role of men. The main issue addressed in this volume is not how male socialists "dealt with" the woman question or how women functioned in or outside left-wingparties; it rather centers on illustrating the power distribution between the sexes in specific political and cultural contexts. This rigorously focused and coherent volume, to which some of the best-known scholars in the field have contributed, will no doubt establish itself as the standard reference work for years to come.

"Packs in all you wanted to know about the left and women during this fraught period."  · American Historical Review

"This important collection ... provides a great deal of empirical information as well as interesting theoretical reflections. The breadth of the studies is impressive."  · Central European History

Helmut Gruber is Charles S. Baylis Professor of History emeritus, Polytechnic University, New York, and co-editor of International Labor & Working-Class History.

Contributors: Michelle Perrot, Ida Blom, Ulla Jansz, Denise DeWeerdt, Mary Nash, Renée Frangeur, Hilda Romer Christensen, Adelheid von Saldern, Geoff Eley, Jean-Louis Robert, Atina Grossmann, Pamela Graves, Christine Bard, Mary Gibson, Helmut Gruber, Louise Tilly.

Pamela Graves† was Emeritus of European History at Eastern Michigan University. She taught classes in European women's history, European social and intellectual history, and the history of England. Her publications include Labour Women: Women in British Working-Class Politics, 1918-1939 (Cambridge University Press, 1994)