A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Rethinking the Western Tradition)

Mary Wollstonecraft’s visionary treatise, originally published in 1792, was the first book to present women’s rights as an issue of universal human rights. Ideal for coursework and classroom study, this comprehensive edition of Wollstonecraft’s groundbreaking feminist argument includes illuminating essays by leading scholars that highlight the author’s significant contributions to modern political philosophy, making a powerful case for her as one of the most substantive political thinkers of the Enlightenment era. No other scholarly work to date has examined as closely both the ideological moorings and the enduring legacy of Wollstonecraft’s courageous discourse.

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) was a British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women’s rights. Eileen Hunt Botting is associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame.