Synopses & Reviews
In this fascinating and unique study, Ann Hughes examines how the experience of civil war in seventeenth-century England affected the roles of women and men in politics and society; and how conventional concepts of masculinity and femininity were called into question by the war and the trial and execution of an anointed King. Ann Hughes combines discussion of the activities of women in the religious and political upheavals of the revolution, with a pioneering analysis of how male political identities were fractured by civil war. Traditional parallels and analogies between marriage, the family and the state were shaken, and rival understandings of sexuality, manliness, effeminacy and womanliness were deployed in political debate.
In a historiography dominated by military or political approaches, Gender and the English Revolution reveals the importance of gender in understanding the events in England during the 1640s and 1650s. It will be an essential resource for anyone interested in women 's history, feminism, gender or British History.
Synopsis
In this fascinating and unique study, Ann Hughes examines how the experience of the civil wars in England changed both role and conception of women and men in politics, society and culture. Not only does Hughes examine the activities of women in the religious and political upheavals of the revolution, re-inserting them into a historiography that has been dominated by militaristic studies, she also examines the impact of civil war on gendered thinking about politics. Examining the parallels and analogies between marriage, the family and the state, Hughes unravels the ways in which notions of manliness, effeminacy and womanliness were deployed in political debate and how they impacted on notions of public and private. Moreover, Hughes examines how traditional concepts of masculinity and femininity were called into question by the challenge to the king and the changing nature of politics in the 1640s and 1650s.
Synopsis
From the most important feminist scholar of early modern Britain in the UK, this is a fascinating and unique examination of how the experience of the civil wars in England changed both role and conception of women and men in politics, society and culture.
The English Revolution and Gender examines:
- the activities of women in the religious and political upheavals of the revolution
- the impact of the civil war on gendered thinking about politics
- the parallels and analogies between marriage, the family and the a statea (TM)
- the ways in which notions of manliness, effeminacy and womanliness were deployed in political debate.
With no other book on gender or womena (TM)s experiences of the English Civil War a an area dominated by a military history approach - this will be an essential part of any course on womena (TM)s history, feminism or British history.