The Feminist Press celebrates its own coming of age with an anthology of distinguished women's writings.

“Filled with fascinating detail . . . this second volume of French’s massive and valuable work is an example of scholarship and clear vision.” —Publishers Weekly This volume of New York Times–bestselling author Marilyn French’s monumental history analyzes and evaluates the lives of women in societies around the world between feudal times and the French Revolution. Drawing upon fifteen years of collaboration with a team of researchers and prominent historians, the volume opens with fascinating chapters comparing medieval Europe and Japan, disparate cultures which nevertheless shared traditions of male dominated aggression and competitiveness. French then shows how, in Europe, this tradition led to colonialism and imperialism, and the horrific subjugation of indigenous societies, just as women were subjugated in the conquerors’ home countries. As French makes clear in this impassioned women’s history, only with the French Revolution did the political force women exerted powerfully change the course of history. “French gives us grand theory at its best, wading through copious amounts of scholarly data on the histories of civilizations and offering up, in readable prose, an important synthesis.” —Library Journal

The first volume of the New York Times–bestselling author’s monumental and unprecedented history: “Consistently thought-provoking” (The New York Review of Books). The internationally celebrated author of The Women’s Room, Marilyn French spent over fifteen years with a team of researchers and prominent historians examining women’s lives and activities in civilizations and societies spanning the ages. Beginning in prehistory, Origins moves on to examine women’s lives in ancient Egypt, China, India, Peru, Mexico, Greece, and Rome. In her reconstruction of wars, laws, and other activities affecting both women and men, French also traces the worldviews underpinning them. She also depicts how women’s relationship to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam changed for good and bad over the centuries. “She backs up even her more controversial theories with an impressive accumulation of academically accepted historical, anthropological and sociological sources . . . Written in concise, understated language, this is a significant addition to literature on women’s studies and history.” —Publishers Weekly

A girl comes of age in the radical 1960s in this “beautifully written” novel by the groundbreaking author of The Women’s Room (Kate Mosse). It’s 1968 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Jess Leighton, the daughter of a temperamental painter and a proto-feminist Harvard professor, is struggling to make sense of her world amid racial tensions, Vietnam War protests, anti-government rage, her own burgeoning sexuality, and bad relationships. With more options than her mother’s generation, but no role model for creating the life she desires, Jess experiments with sex and psychedelic drugs as she searches for happiness on her own terms. In the midst of joining and fleeing a commune, growing organic vegetables, and operating a sustainable restaurant, Jess grapples with the legacy of her mother’s generation while building a future for herself, and for the postmodern woman. “French’s meticulous and affecting tale of the forging of one woman’s conscience encompasses thoughtful portraits of ‘love children,’ from peace activists to members of unconventional families, and a forthright critique of the counterculture that puts today’s wars, struggles for equality, and environmental troubles into sharp perspective” (Booklist).

ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL AND BESTSELLING NOVELS OF THE MODERN FEMINIST MOVEMENT 'It was about the need to change things from top to bottom; it was a declaration of independence' OBSERVER 'The first and last international bestseller of the women's movement' GUARDIAN 'They said this book would change lives - and it certainly changed mine' JENNI MURRAY, BBC RADIO 4 A landmark in feminist literature, The Women's Room is a biting social commentary of a world gone silently haywire. Written in the 1970s but with profound resonance today, this is a modern allegory that offers piercing insight into the social norms accepted blindly and revered so completely. It follows the transformation of Mira Ward and her circle as the women's movement begins to have an impact on their lives. A biting social commentary on an emotional world gone silently haywire, The Women's Room is a modern classic that offers piercing insight into the social norms accepted so blindly and revered so completely. Marilyn French questions those accepted norms and poignantly portrays the hopeful believers looking for new truths.