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The dominance of English-language scholarship is both a blessing and a curse for the purposes of this book. Because of the book’s intended audience of students as well as scholars, I decided to include only English-language materials in the suggestion for further reading that follow each chapter, and to make these brief. You can trust that these works contain much of the newest and best research available, and they point to materials in other languages, but they represent only a small fraction of what is there. To explore any topic fully, you will need to go far beyond them, and in many cases, as with any historical topic, to read source materials, analyses, and theoretical discussions in other languages as well.

Organizing a brief book on a subject this huge was a challenge, made even greater by the fact that a key theme in women’s and gender history has been the arbitrary and artificial nature of all boundaries – chronological, national, methodological, sexual. Thus for the first two editions of this book, I decided to organize the book topically rather than geographically or chronologically, in order to highlight the specific connections between gender and other structures and institutions. Each topical chapter investigated the ways in which what it meant to be male and female was shaped by such aspects of society as economic or religious structures, and also explored the reverse – how gender in turn shaped work, for example, or religious institutions.

For this third edition, I decided to reorganize the book completely, and, beginning with Chapter 3, present the material chronologically, with each chapter covering a shorter time frame than its predecessor. This decision was in part a response to comments from faculty who have used the book that a chronological organization would better meet their needs and those of their students. Each chapter incorporates material that was in the topical chapters, including discussion of the family, religion, politics, economic issues, culture, and sexuality, as well as new information based on the scholarship of the past decade. Each chapter discusses many of the world’s cultures, notes both distinctions among them and links between them, and suggests possible reasons for variations among cultures and among different social, ethnic, and racial groups within one culture.

Chapter 2 is an update of what was Chapter 4 in the previous editions, and looks at key ideas and ideals that emerged in a number of cultures and then shaped the informal norms and more formalized laws regulating every realm of life. This is not to say that these concepts were the same everywhere or that they did not change over time, but that there have been significant similarities, parallels, and continuities across time and space. These include: ideas about the nature and proper roles of men and women, what is often termed masculinity and femininity or manhood and womanhood; binaries related to male/female binaries, including nature/culture, public/private, inner/outer, order/disorder, rational/passionate; norms and laws regarding motherhood and fatherhood; ideas and laws prescribing male dominance and female subservience and dependence; ideas and laws promoting gender egalitarianism.

The chronological chapters begin with Chapter 3. Just as they have de-emphasized the nation as the most significant geographic unit, most global historians have also de-emphasized the invention of writing as a sharp dividing line in human history. With this the border between archaeology and history disappears, and the Paleolithic (2,000,000–9500 BCE) and Neolithic (9500 BCE–3000 BCE) become part of history rather than “prehistory.” Chapter 3 covers these eras. It begins with the evolution of hominids, looks at Paleolithic society and culture, examines the impact of domestication and the development of agriculture in the Neolithic on gender roles and relationships, and ends with a discussion of debates over the origins of patriarchy.

Chapter 4 examines the growth of cities and larger-scale political structures in the period from roughly 3000 BCE to roughly 500 BCE. It explores the more complex gender hierarchies that developed in cities and states and the ways writing facilitated this process; looks at work and family life; analyzes the religious traditions of the ancient Near East, including Judaism; and considers the growth of hereditary dynasties, which transmitted power through lineages of elites. Chapter 5 focuses on the classical cultures of Eurasia in the period from 500 BCE to 500 CE. It begins with the family and sexuality, examines the growth and spread of religious traditions, including Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity, and the ways these shaped family life and social practices, and ends with a discussion of education and culture. Chapter 6 investigates the thousand years between 500 CE and 1500 CE. It examines patterns in family life and religious traditions that endured for a long time in Africa, the Americas and the Pacific, the growth of large-scale states in the Americas, and the development of courtly societies across much of the world. It traces the origin and spread of Islam, developments in Europe and the Mediterranean, and the way growing cities created opportunities that were shaped by gender.

Chapter 7 focuses on the early modern period, from 1500 to 1800. It examines economic transformations, especially the growth of capitalism; the Renaissance, Reformation, and spread of Christianity around the world; how colonialism shaped families and gendered ideas of race; and connections between gender and political life. Chapter 8 explores the modern world, from 1800 to today. It begins with industrialization, tracing its spread around the world and the way it facilitated imperial conquests, which simultaneously challenged and reinforced existing gender hierarchies and social patterns. It then looks at movements for social change, and the development of what has been called “modern” sexuality. Moving into the twentieth century, it examines wars, revolutions, and political change, further developments in the industrial and postindustrial economy, changes in family life and structures, and cultural shifts. The still-short twenty-first century is part of all of these, and the book ends where we are now, in the midst of a global pandemic, with implications for issues related to gender that have already been recognized but whose scope is still unknown. The instructor’s companion site to this book has links to original sources, both textual and visual, along with extended suggestions for further reading. It can be accessed here: www.wiley.com/go/wiesner-hanks/genderinhistory3e

I certainly could not cover every topic everywhere, so I have chosen to highlight specific developments and issues within certain cultures that have proven to be especially significant. World historians emphasize that variations in both chronological and geographic scale are important tools of understanding, and I have used this insight here. The book is based on my own research and that of many people who examine what the (incomplete) written and material record reveals about the past. Much of that record is the story of women’s subordination, which may make you, as the reader, feel angry, depressed, or defensive. If you do, please remember that this is not a book about what might have been, what should be, or what could happen in the future; that I leave to philosophers, ethicists, theologians, and you.