Writing Women's History Since the Renaissance

by Mary Spongberg

The complaint of Catherine Morland in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey , that history has 'hardly any women at all' is not an uncommon one. Yet there is evidence to suggest that women have engaged in historical writing since ancient times.

This study traces the history of women's historical writing, reclaiming the lives of individual women historians, recovering women's historical writings from the past and focusing on how gender has shaped the genre of history. Mary Spongberg brings together for the first time an extensive survey of the progress of women's historical writing from the Renaissance to the present, demonstrating the continuities between women's historical writings in the past and the development of a distinctly woman-centred historiography.

Writing Women's History since the Renaissance also examines the relationship between women's history and the development of feminist consciousness, suggesting that the study of history has alerted women to their unequal status and enabled them to use history to achieve women's rights. Whether feminist or anti-feminist, women who have had their historical writings published have served as role models for women seeking a voice in the public sphere and have been instrumental in encouraging the growth of a feminist discourse.

308 pages, Paperback

First published October 23, 2002

Reviews

[Tobi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Spondberg's major focus is on how women's history has been written. The first part of the book focuses on the depiction of women in what she calls 'men's history', the second half focuses on the histories that women wrote themselves. She sees women's history as having existed in the written form all along but dismissed by those in power as not being 'real history'. There are several chapters focusing on the historiography of the women's liberation movement.

[Huong · Rating 2 out of 5]

very informative, but the writing style is a little dry.

[Devoney Looser · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've had the pleasure of reviewing this book: Looser, Devoney. Rev. of Women’s History Writing Since the Renaissance, by Mary Spongberg. Clio 34.1–2 (2004): 166–70. Print.