Synopses & Reviews
WITH A NEW POSTSCRIPT
Situated between Greece on the south, the former Yugoslavia on the north and east, and the Adriatic Sea on the west, Albania is the country the world forgot.
Throughout this century, Albania has been perceived as primitive and isolationist by its neighbors to the west. When the country ended fifty years of communist rule in 1992, few outsiders took interest. Deemed unworthy of membership in the European Union and overlooked by multinational corporations, Albania stands today as one of the poorest and most ignored countries in Europe.
Miranda Vickers and James Pettifer take us behind the veil of former President Enver Hoxha's isolationist policies to examine the historic events leading up to Albania's transition to a parliamentary government. Beginning with Hoxha's death in 1985, Albania traces the last decade of Albania's shaky existence, from the anarchy and chaos of the early nineties to the victory of the Democratic Alliance in 1992 and the programs of the current government. The authors provide us with an analysis of how the moral, religious, economic, political and cultural identity of the Albanian people is being redefined, and leave no question that the future of Albania is inextricably linked to the future of the Balkans as a whole. In short, they tell us why Albania matters.
Review
"The broadest and most inclusive portrait yet of women's identities and stories in the region. . . a considerable achievement." -American Historical Review,
Review
"Excellent." -Tim Judah,The Economist
Review
"An authoritative account of Albania's turbulent history since the death in 1985 of Enver Hoxha." -Nigel Clive,The Spectator
Review
"[The authors] are to be congratulated on the objective way in which they have presented the Albanian history of the last ten years." -Tom Winnifrith ,Times Literary Supplement
Synopsis
Among the most prominent icons of the American south is that of the southern belle, immortalized by such figures as Scarlett O'Hara, Dolly Madison, and Lucy Pickens (whose elegant image graced the Confederate $100 bill). And yet the women of America's south iave always defied pat generalization, no more readily forced into facle categories than women in the country's other regions.
Never before has a book of southern history so successfully integrated the experiences of white and non-white women. Among the myriad subjects addressed in the book are black women's suffrage, the economic realities of Choctaw women, female kin and female slaves in planters's wills, the northern myth of the rebel girl, second wave feminism in the South, and southern lesbians. Bringing to light the lives of Cherokee women, Appalachian "coal daughters," and Jewish women in the South, the essays all but one published in this book for the first time, ensure that monolithic representations of southern womanhood are a thing of the past.
Filling a crucial gap in southern history and women's history, Women of the American South is a valuable reference and pedagogical aid for a wide range of scholars and students.
About the Author
Author of
The Albanians: A Modern History,
MIRANDA VICKERS is an historian of the Balkans and a regular contributor to newspapers and periodicals on Albanian affairs.
JAMES PETTIFER is Visiting Professor at the Institute of Balkan Studies at the University of Thessaloniki, and author of The Greeks: Land and People since the War and other books.
Table of Contents
Writing the history of southern women / Anne Firor Scott -- From corn mothers to cotton spinners : continuity in Choctaw women's economic life, A.D. 950-1830 / James Taylor Carson -- A struggle for survival : non-elite white women in lowcountry Georgia, 1790-1830 / Timothy J. Lockley -- Cherokee women and cultural change / Alice Taylor-Colbert --The politics of pedagogy and Judaism in the early republican South : the case of Rachel and Eliza Mordecai / Jean E. Friedman -- Equality deferred, opportunity pursued : the sisters of Wachovia /Johanna Miller Lewis -- According to his wish and desire : female kin and female slaves in planter wills / Joan E. Cashin -- The northern myth of the rebel girl / Nina Silber -- "Stand by your man" : the ladies memorial association and the reconstruction of southern white manhood / LeeAnn Whites -- Susannah and the elders or Potiphar's wife? : allegations of sexual misconduct at Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute / Adele Logan Alexander -- Waiting for the millennium, remembering the past : Appalachian women in time and place / Margaret Ripley Wolfe -- "Most sacrificing" service : the educational leadership of Lucy Craft Laney and Mary McLeod Bethune / Audrey Thomas McCluskey -- Black women's culture of resistance and the right to vote / Darlene Clark Hine and Christie Anne Farnham -- Renegotiating liberty : Garveyism, women, and grassroots organizing in Virginia / Barbara Bair -- A new deal for southern women : gender and race in women's work relief /Martha H. Swain -- Searching for southern lesbian history / Pippa Holloway -- Second wave feminism(s) and the South : the difference that differences make /Jane Sherron De Hart.