Revolution, abolition of slavery, public health care, welfare, violence against women, war and militarism — such issues have been debated for centuries. But much work done by women theorists on these traditional social and political topics is little known or difficult to obtain. This new anthology contains significant excerpts not normally included in standard collections.
Women Theorists on Society and Politics brings together scarce, previously unpublished and newly translated excerpts from works by such women theorists as Emilie du Châtelet, Germaine de Staël, Catharine Macaulay, Mary Wollstonecraft, Flora Tristan, Harriet Martineau, Florence Nightingale, Beatrice Webb and Jane Addams. It focuses on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century writers, but also includes some selections from as early as the Renaissance and late seventeenth century.
Introductions to the material, biographical background and secondary sources enhance this important collection. Women Theorists on Society and Politics provides essential theory on standard topics and a balance to the anthologies of feminist writing now more commonly available.

Lynn McDonald is a professor of sociology at the University of Guelph, Ontario. She is a former president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, Canada’s largest women’s organization. As a Member of Parliament (the first “Ms” in the House of Commons), her Non-smokers Health Act made Parliamentary history as a private member’s bill, and made Canada a world leader in the “tobacco wars.” She is the author of The Early Origins of the Social Sciences (1993), and The Women Founders of the Social Sciences (1994) and editor of Women Theorists on Society and Politics (WLU Press, 1998), all of which have significant sections on Florence Nightingale.

Lynn McDonald's profile page

This fascinating volume includes material that has not hitherto been published...or appeared in English...and makes difficult texts more accessible by translating the works of early theorists into modern English so that readers can concentrate on content rather than form.

Margaret Conrad, <i>Canadian Book Review Annual</i>, 2005 February