Gender and the Politics of History

Winner, in the original edition, of the 1989 Joan Kelly Prize of the American Historical Association, this landmark work from a renowned feminist historian is a trenchant critique of women's history and gender inequality. Exploring topics ranging from language and gender to the politics of work and family, Gender and the Politics of Historyis a crucial interrogation of the uses of gender as a tool for cultural and historical analysis.The revised edition -- in addition to providing a new generation of readers with access to a classic text in feminist theory and history -- reassesses the book's fundamental topic: the category of gender. In provocatively arguing that gender no longer serves to destabilize our understanding of sexual difference, the new preface and new chapter open a critical dialogue with the original book.

Joan Wallach Scott is professor of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.