Rethinking Canada: The Promise of Women's History - Softcover

Myers, Tamara

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195431723 ISBN 13: 9780195431728

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2011

Synopsis

Rethinking Canada: The Promise of Women's History is a collection of essays that introduces readers to the rich, diverse, and intellectually lively field of Canadian women's history. First published in 1986 and now entering its successful sixth edition, Rethinking Canada includes articles spanning from the 1600s to present day that reflect a revised understanding of Canadian women's history along racial, religious, national, and ethnic lines. Of the 24 essays, 18 are new, emphasizing increased coverage of indigenous, immigrant, and racialized experiences; work and labour; sexuality and the body; religion and spirituality; politics; and shifts in regional analysis. The scope of topics remains broad: from women and war in early indigenous society to women and the fur trade in New France, from war-time nurses in World War I to lesbian bar culture in the 1950s and 1960s and modern-day transnational motherhood, this wide-ranging reader acts as a core text for courses in Canadian women's history.
Each essay is introduced by the editors, who place it in its wider historical and scholarly context. For the first time, Rethinking Canada now includes primary source documents such as photos, newspaper clippings, and historical excerpts to accompany each article. These pieces allow readers to engage in historical interpretation and provide visual snapshots into the past. Recent scholarship and fresh editorial commentaries combine to create an invaluable introduction not only to Canadian women's history, but also to the study of Canadian history itself.

About this title

About the Author:

Mona Gleason is associate professor in educational studies at the University of British Columbia, where she teaches courses on the history of children and youth and the history of education. An active member of both the Ontario Women's History Network and the Canadian Committee on Women's History, she has also published a monograph entitled Normalizing the Ideal: Psychology, Schooling, and the Family in Postwar Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999).

Adele Perry is associate professor of history at the University of Manitoba. She is also the Canada Research Chair in Western Canadian Social History, and frequently teaches courses on gender history in Canada and Aboriginal rights. Her research interests include colonialism, transnationalism, migration, gender, and sexuality.

Tamara Myers is associate professor of history at the University of British Columbia. In addition to teaching women's history at UBC, she is actively researching in French-Canadian women's history and childhood history. Selected publications include Caught: Montreal's Modern Girls and the Law, 1869-1945 (2006), and Negotiating Identities in 19th- and 20th-Century Montreal (edited with Bettina Bradbury, 2005).

Review:

"A good selection of articles blends subjective and objective elements of women's historical experiences, and combines innovative primary and secondary sources for a balanced coverage of time periods, regions, and fields. It integrates established scholarship in women's history, gay history,
and the history of sexuality, with current advances in issues of race, Quebec sovereignty, transnational questions, and Aboriginal history."
--Kathleen Lord, Mount Allison University

" . . . One student reported that [this] was the best textbook she'd ever read. The writing style and readability of this edition is as clear as the fifth edition . . . the book is balanced, and the selection of articles is strong."

--Nancy Janovicek, University of Calgary

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0195431723
• ISBN 13: 9780195431728
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 6
• Number of pages: 440
• Editor: Gleason Mona, Perry Adele