Gender, Power and Privilege in Early Modern Europe: 1500 - 1700

Feminist history continues to change the way history is written, and in doing so changes our view of the past. The authors of this collection explore how issues of sexuality, class, nationalism and colonialism informed the ways in which women were represented and continue to be represented in history. They show the ways in which women have been excluded, silenced and misrepresented in stories of the past, and how women's lives have been distorted or simplified in conventional historical accounts. Together, they suggest fresh ways of approaching women's history, and use examples of work in new areas of research such as women's health and leisure in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the various methodologies being proposed.

Jessica Munns is Professor of Literature at the University of Denver. Her previous books include Restoration Politics and Drama: The Plays of Thomas Otway, 1675-1683 (1995), with Gita Rajan she has co-edited A Cultural Studies Reader: History, Theory, Practice (1996). Penny Richards is a Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Gloucestershire. She has published widely on early modern history and has co-edited with Jessica Munns, The Clothes that Wear Us: Dressing and Transgressing, Essays in Eighteenth-Century Culture (1999).