From Eve to Dawn, A History of Women in the World, Volume II: The Masculine Mystique: From Feudalism to the French Revolution

by Marilyn French and Margaret Atwood
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Publish Date: March 31, 2008
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Overview

In this second volume of her compelling History of Women Marilyn French investigates the role of women in society from feudal times up to the French Revolution. |||This book is sold in the US by Sony Electronics Inc. |||This book is sold in Canada by Sony Electronics Inc.

Author Information

Marilyn French

Marilyn French was a pioneering feminist thinker best known for her novels The Women's Room, The Bleeding Daughter and Her Mother 's Daughter. The Women's Room has sold over seven million copies and appeared on The New York Times Book Review Bestseller List for almost a year. McArthur & Company published her trilogy From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in 2003.

Margaret Atwood

Born November 18, 1939, in Ottawa, Canada, Margaret Atwood spent her early years in the northern Quebec wilderness. Settling in Toronto in 1946, she continued to spend summers in the northern woods. This experience provided much of the thematic material for her verse. Atwood began her writing career as a poet, short story writer, cartoonist, and reviewer for her high school paper. She attended Victoria College, University of Toronto, from 1957-1961. She received her A. M. at Radcliff College of Harvard University in 1962. Atwood's first book of verse, Double Persephone, was published in 1961 and was awarded the E. J. Pratt Medal. She has published numerous books of poetry, novels, story collections, critical work, juvenile work, and radio and teleplays. Many of her novels focus on women's issues. Atwood lectured in English Literature at University of British Columbia, Vancouver; Sir George Williams University, Montreal; and York University, Toronto. She served as writer in residence at University of Toronto; University of Alabama; New York University; and Macquarie University, North Rye, Australia. Awards for her poetry and fiction include the Governor General's Award in 1966 for The Circle Game and in 1986 for The Handmaid's Tale. The Handmaid's Tale was also filmed in 1990 and short-listed for the Booker Prize, as was Cat's Eye in 1989.

Editorial Reviews

This second of four volumes, moves quickly from feudalism to the French revolution. Firmly rooted in more modern history, novelist and scholar French (The Women's Room) writes less theoretically and more concretely than in volume 1. Beautifully sourced and referenced, the book shows, for instance, that in the 1400s Protestant and Catholic theologians transformed marriage from a private arrangement into a complex public ceremony that granted men more power. Women came to have less and less say in when and whom they would wed. Discussing the colonization of Africa, French illustrates how traditional, more egalitarian African gender roles were altered under European property-based, Christian social structures. French also begins to focus on how female sexuality was interpreted by a male-dominated culture. Marie Antoinette, for example, was convicted and executed not only for supporting her husband but for sexually corrupting the dauphin and thus the body politic. Filled with fascinating detail and powerful arguments, this second volume of French's massive and valuable work is an example of scholarship and clear vision. (May)
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