G. J. Barker-Benfield – författare

Until recently, the "womanless" American history was the norm. But in fact, without a history of women we neglect consideration of gender dynamics, sex roles, and family and sexual relations -- the very fundamentals of human interaction. In Portraits of American Women, editors G.J. Barker-Benfield and Catherine Clinton present twenty-five short essays on American women beginning with Pocahontas and ending with Betty Friedan.These essays aim to locate the histories of women and men together by period and to provide a sense of their continuities through the whole gallery of the American past. The editors selected women who made "significant contributions in the public realm," be they in the areas of art, literature, political engagement, educational activities, or reform movements. Included here are portraits of such women luminaries as Georgia O'Keeffe, Margaret Mead, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, to name a few. Clearly women's lives provide a vital perspective through which the great panorama of social change in the American past can be understood. Each portrait is fashioned to appeal to a wide range of readers, and all include sound scholarship and accessible prose, and raise provocative issues to illuminate women's lives within a broad range of historical transformations.

G. J. Barker-Benfield documents the emergence of the culture of sensibility that transformed British society of the eighteenth century. His account focuses on the rise of new moral and spiritual values and the struggle to redefine the group identities of men and women. Drawing on the full spectrum of eighteenth-century thought from Adam Smith to John Locke, from the Earl of Shaftesberry to Dr. George Cheyne, and especially Mary Wollstonecraft, Barker-Benfield offers an innovative and compelling way to understand how Britain entered the modern age.

This book highlights the significant role played by Ignatius Sancho (c. 1729-80), the first black man to vote in England, in the British abolitionist movement. Examining the letters of Sancho, and especially his correspondence with the influential novelist and preacher, Laurence Sterne, the author analyses the relationship between sensibility and antislavery in eighteenth-century Britain. The book demonstrates how Sancho navigated the bawdy, riotous conditions of commercial London, which was the headquarters of a growing and war-torn Empire. It shows how Sancho mastered the fashionable and gendered language of the culture of sensibility, navigating the contemporary issues of race, slavery, and politics. The book also touches on the White metropolitan and colonial preoccupation with Black men’s sexuality, which was intensified by the Somerset decision of 1772. Sancho’s was a unique and influential voice in eighteenth-century Britain, making this book an insightful read for scholars of anti-slavery as well as gender, race and imperialism in British history.