|
Contemporary Western European Feminism is
a ground-breaking history of feminism. Gisela Kaplan invites a critical
analysis of current ideas, terms and assumptions about our modern world.
Written confidently and with compassion, this is the story of a long
revolution that has set out to change predominant attitudes and
transform value hierarchies and human lifestyles. By outlining the
postwar history of individual countries Kaplan contextualises women’s
movements and documents a significant chapter of European social
history. She poses questions about the interrelationship between the new
movements and the parliamentary democracies in which they occurred,
while analysing the contradictions of living in modern capitalist
countries.
Contemporary Western European Feminism also tackles important
contradictions, such as those between the welfare state and the free
market economy, industrialisation and religious value systems, social
engineering and the production of wealth, and dissent and patrimonial
systems of democracy.
For those wanting to know more about Europe without the intimidating
barriers of language and for those already experts in its social
history, Contemporary Western European Feminism is essential reading.
Gisela Kaplan is Foundation Professor and Head of the School of
Social Sciences at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane.
She grew up in West Berlin but gained her PhD at Monash University,
Melbourne. She has lectured widely in Australia, Europe and the USA
where she recently held a Visiting Professorship in Sociology at Memphis
State University.
This is an exciting, theoretically sophisticated and excellently
documented contribution to feminist literature.
Politically astute and methodologically impeccable, the book places
Western European feminisms within broader social, economic and
historical contexts, relating them to wider social movements out of
which and against which they have grown and struggled. The scope is
clearly stated, the goods promised are all delivered, the author's
awesome linguistic skills have allowed for the use of particularly rich
source materials not normally available to English·speaking readers, and
the very impressive bibliography allows what is a coherent whole to
serve also as a stepping stone to further explorations.
This is a book for all women as we seek to understand our differences
and our common bonds. Above all it is a unique contribution to the
comparative understanding of social movements. lt will be indispensable
for women's studies courses and should be read by all feminist
theorists. |
