This book, Beyond Interviews: Exploring Changes in Women’s Lives and Politics (1970-2008), examines the life trajectories and social and political views and behaviors of a diverse group of thirteen women I interviewed four times--from their junior year in high school in 1970 through their mid-fifties in 2008. As a group, they were part of a distinctive generational cohort. However, as juniors, the young women’s educational and political views and participation in protest activity varied si...

This is the story of Condoleezza Rice that has never been told, not that of an ultra-accomplished world leader, but of a little girl--and a young woman--trying to find her place in a sometimes hostile world, of two exceptional parents, and an extended family and community that made all the difference.Condoleezza Rice has excelled as a diplomat, political scientist, and concert pianist. Her achievements run the gamut from helping to oversee the collapse of communism...

A secular feminist army courageously challenges the Islamic StateIn war-torn northern Syria, a democratic society—based on secularism, ethnic inclusiveness, and gender equality—has won significant victories against the Islamic State, or Daesh, with women on the front lines as fierce warriors and leaders.A Road Unforeseen recounts the dramatic, underreported history of the Rojava Kurds, whose all-women militia was instrumental in the perilo...

A new biography of Nancy Astor, American socialite and social crusader who blazed a trail through British society amid two World WarsIn 1919, Nancy Astor became the first female Member of Parliament elected to the House of Commons—she was not what had been expected. Far from a virago who had suffered for the cause of female suffrage, Lady Astor was already near the center of the ruling society that had for so long resisted the political upheavals of the early twentieth century, havi...

An outspoken centrist, Senator Snowe stunned Washington in February 2012 when she announced she would not seek a fourth term and offered a sharp rebuke to the Senate, citing the dispiriting gridlock and polarization. After serving in the legislative branch at the state and federal levels for 40 years, including 18 years in the U.S. Senate, she explained that Washington wasn’t solving the big problems anymore.In this timely call to action, she explores the roots of her belief in pri...

An icon remembered in death as vividly as she appeared in life, Diana, Princess of Wales, is one of the most enduring personalities of the twentieth century-and one of the most enigmatic. With exclusive access to all those closest to Diana, Sarah Bradford now casts aside the gossip and lies and takes us to the very heart of the royal family to separate the myth from the truth of the Diana years. With the authority missing from previous accounts, as well as remarkable new sources, Diana...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From Pulitzer Prize–winning author Anna Quindlen comes “a splendid collection” of short essays that are “eloquent, powerful, compassionate, and droll” (The Cleveland Plain Dealer)“Quindlen writes with rare insight, intelligence, and wit. Most of all she writes from the heart.”—The Buffalo NewsThinking out loud is what Pulitzer Prize winner Anna Quindlen does best in this collection of h...

The inspiring true story of Josephine Reynolds, Britain's first full-time female firefighter.When Josephine Reynolds signed up with the Norfolk Fire Service in July 1982 at just seventeen years old, there was no such thing as a firefighter – only fire men. Set against the slate-grey backdrop of early 1980s Britain, Fire Woman is the story of how a young woman brought up in rural Wales coped in the testosterone-fuelled world of the fire brigade, wh...

In the presidential election of 2008 America seemed ready to elevate a woman to the presidency or vice presidency and—with Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin—was on the verge of actually doing so. Words like inevitable and phenomenon were in the air and the political and cultural stars seemed to be aligned.Why didn’t it happen? What will it take to make it happen soon?In a probing analysis sure to ignite controversy, acclaimed White House correspondent Anne Kornblut argues tha...

Canadian women on the political left in the first half of the twentieth century fought with varying degrees of commitment for women's rights. Women's dreams of equality were in part a vision of economic and class equality, though they also represented profound desires for equality with men - both within their own parties and in the larger society. In both the Communist Party of Canada and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, a male-dominated leadership seldom embraced women's causes w...

Still Counting explains why scholars and activists continue to count the number of women elected to Canada's legislatures, and demonstrates that, by any measure, women are only halfway to equal. The authors assert that an "electoral glass ceiling" is keeping women at or below the 25 per cent mark, restricting women to less than half of the seats that would be theirs in a democracy committed to balanced, equitable, and fair representation. Moreover, little is being done to address ...

Writing in the wake of neoliberalism, where human rights and social justice have increasingly been subordinated to proliferating “consumer choices” and ideals of market justice, contributors to this collection argue that feminist ethnographers are in a key position to reassert the central feminist connections between theory, methods, and activism. Together, we suggest avenues for incorporating methodological innovations, collaborative analysis, and collective activism in our scholarly proj...