Gerda Lerner – författare

"All human beings are practicing historians," writes Gerda Lerner. "We live our lives; we tell our stories. It is as natural as breathing." It is as important as breathing, too. History shapes our self-definition and our relationship to community; it locates us in time and place and helps to give meaning to our lives. History can be the vital thread that holds a nation together, as demonstrated most strikingly in the case of Jewish history. Conversely, for women, who have lived in a world in which they apparently had no history, its absence can be devastating. In Why History Matters, Lerner brings together her thinking and research of the last sixteen years, combining personal reminiscences with innovative theory that illuminate the importance of history and the vital role women have played in it. Why History Matters contains some of the most significant thinking and writing on history that Lerner has done in her entire career--a summation of her life and work. The chapters are divided into three sections, each widely different from the others, each revelatory of Lerner as a woman and a feminist. We read first of Lerner''s coming to consciousness as a Jewish woman. There are moving accounts of her early life as a refugee in America, her return to Austria fifty years after fleeing the Nazis (to discover a nation remarkable both for the absence of Jews and for the anti-Semitism just below the surface), her slow assimilation into American life, and her decision to be a historian. If the first section is personal, the second focuses on more professional concerns. Included here is a fascinating essay on nonviolent resistance, tracing the idea from the Quakers (such as Mary Dyer), to abolitionists such as Theodore Dwight Weld (the "most mobbed man" in America), to Thoreau''s essay Civil Disobedience, then across the sea to Tolstoy and Gandhi, before finally returning to America during the civil rights movement of the 1950s. There are insightful essays on "American Values" and on the tremendous advances women have made in the twentieth century, as well as Lerner''s presidential address to the Organization of American Historians, which outlines the contributions of women to the field of history and the growing importance of women as a subject of history. The highlight of the final section of the book is Lerner''s bold and innovative look at the issues of class and race as they relate to women, an essay that distills her thinking on these difficult subjects and offers a coherent conceptual framework that will prove of lasting interest to historians and intellectuals. A major figure in women''s studies and long-term activist for women''s issues, a founding member of NOW and a past president of the Organization of American Historians, Gerda Lerner is a pioneer in the field of Women''s History and one of its leading practitioners. Why History Matters is the summation of the work and thinking of this distinguished historian.

When precisely did the ideas, symbols and metaphors of patriarchy take hold of Western civilization? When were women, so central to the creation of society, moved on to the sidelines? Where is the evidence to support the notion that male dominance over women is a natural state of things? Gerda Lerner's radical review of Western civilization shows that male dominance over women has nothing to do with biology, and everything to do with cultural and historical habits. Dr Lerner draws her evidence from a host of archaeological, literary, and artistic sources, using them to pinpoint the critical turning points in the allocation of women's roles in society. She draws especially on archaeological evidence of the cultures of ancient Hebrew and Mesopotamian societies, cultures from which modern Western civilization has largely derived. This approach enables her to trace the ways in which men and women have been classified as essentially separate creatures - from ancient Greek philosophy onwards - and also to examine ways in which their experience of society differs, through the structures and symbols of class and religion. Most of all, by showing patriarchy as the result of an historical process, Lerner produces an irresistable argument that it can be altered, and ended, by similar means.

A landmark work of women's history originally published in 1967, Gerda Lerner's best-selling biography of Sarah and Angelina Grimke explores the lives and ideas of the only southern women to become antislavery agents in the North and pioneers for women's rights. This revised and expanded edition includes two new primary documents and an additional essay by Lerner. In a revised introduction Lerner reinterprets her own work nearly forty years later and gives new recognition to the major significance of Sarah Grimke's feminist writings.

Lauded for its contribution to the theory and conceptualization of the field of women's history and for its sensitivity to the differences of class, ethnicity, race, and culture among women, The Majority Finds Its Past became a classic volume in women's history following its publication in 1979. This edition includes a foreword by Linda K. Kerber, introducing a new generation of readers to Gerda Lerner's considerable body of work and highlighting the importance of the essays in this collection to the development of the field that Lerner helped establish.

A landmark work of women''s history originally published in 1967, Gerda Lerner''s best-selling biography of Sarah and Angelina Grimke explores the lives and ideas of the only southern women to become antislavery agents in the North and pioneers for women''s rights. This revised and expanded edition includes two new primary documents and an additional essay by Lerner. In a revised introduction Lerner reinterprets her own work nearly forty years later and gives new recognition to the major significance of Sarah Grimke''s feminist writings.

This stimulating collection of essays in an autobiographical framework spans the period from 1963 to the present. It encompasses Gerda Lerner''s theoretical writing and her organizational work in transforming the history profession and in establishing Women''s History as a mainstream field.Six of the twelve essays are new, written especially for this volume; the others have previously appeared in small journals or were originally presented as talks, and have been revised for this book. Several essays discuss feminist teaching and the problems of interpretation of autobiography and memoir for the reader and the historian. Lerner''s reflections on feminism as a worldview, on the meaning of history writing, and on problems of aging lend this book unusual range and depth. Together, the essays illuminate how thought and action connected in Lerner''s life, how the life she led before she became an academic affected the questions she addressed as a historian, and how the social and political struggles in which she engaged informed her thinking. Written in lucid, accessible prose, the essays will appeal to the general reader as well as to students at all levels. Living with History / Making Social Change offers rare insight into the life work of one of the leading historians of the United States.

This stimulating collection of essays in an autobiographical framework spans the period from 1963 to the present. It encompasses Gerda Lerner's theoretical writing and her organizational work in transforming the history profession and in establishing Women's History as a mainstream field.Six of the twelve essays are new, written especially for this volume; the others have previously appeared in small journals or were originally presented as talks, and have been revised for this book. Several essays discuss feminist teaching and the problems of interpretation of autobiography and memoir for the reader and the historian. Lerner's reflections on feminism as a worldview, on the meaning of history writing, and on problems of aging lend this book unusual range and depth. Together, the essays illuminate how thought and action connected in Lerner's life, how the life she led before she became an academic affected the questions she addressed as a historian, and how the social and political struggles in which she engaged informed her thinking. Written in lucid, accessible prose, the essays will appeal to the general reader as well as to students at all levels. Living with History / Making Social Change offers rare insight into the life work of one of the leading historians of the United States.

A beautifully written, dramatic memoir from one of women's history's founders

Gerda Lerners Autobiographie gewährt einen einzigartigen Einblick in das Leben der renommierten Historikerin und Pionierin der Frauenbewegung. Lebendig wird alles, was sie selbst lebte: Von der Wiener Bourgeoisie über die Auswanderung nach Amerika bis zu ihrer beruflichen Laufbahn als eine der feministischen Leitfiguren des 20. Jahrhunderts. Wien in den 20er Jahren. Gerda Kronstein wächst als Tochter einer Künstlerin und eines Apothekers in der höheren Wiener Gesellschaft auf, umgeben von Kindermädchen, Salons und Kammermusik. Schon als Kind und Jugendliche fällt sie durch ihre rebellische Art auf, die sie später in politische Aktivität umwandelt: Nie ein Blatt vor dem Mund und von der marxistischen Idee beeindruckt, bietet die junge Autorin den damals vorherrschenden Verhältnissen die Stirn."Feuerkraut" erzählt mitreißend die Entwicklung der renommierten Historikerin, die Anfänge und die prägenden Erlebnisse vor den und zu Zeiten des Nationalsozialismus in Wien sowie die Zeit nach ihrer Emigration in die USA. Mit viel Selbstironie und Witz setzt sich Gerda Lerner mit ihrem Werdegang auseinander, mit der gescheiterten ersten Ehe, mit der glücklichen zweiten, mit ihrer Rolle als Hausmutter bis hin zur eher "späten" Berufung zu einer der weltbekanntesten Vertreterin der Frauengeschichte. Aus dem Englischen von Andrea Holzmann-Jenkins.

A landmark work of women''s history originally published in 1967, Gerda Lerner''s best-selling biography of Sarah and Angelina Grimke explores the lives and ideas of the only southern women to become antislavery agents in the North and pioneers for women''s rights. This revised and expanded edition includes two new primary documents and an additional essay by Lerner. In a revised introduction Lerner reinterprets her own work nearly forty years later and gives new recognition to the major significance of Sarah Grimke''s feminist writings.

This stimulating collection of essays in an autobiographical framework spans the period from 1963 to the present. It encompasses Gerda Lerner''s theoretical writing and her organizational work in transforming the history profession and in establishing Women''s History as a mainstream field.Six of the twelve essays are new, written especially for this volume; the others have previously appeared in small journals or were originally presented as talks, and have been revised for this book. Several essays discuss feminist teaching and the problems of interpretation of autobiography and memoir for the reader and the historian. Lerner''s reflections on feminism as a worldview, on the meaning of history writing, and on problems of aging lend this book unusual range and depth. Together, the essays illuminate how thought and action connected in Lerner''s life, how the life she led before she became an academic affected the questions she addressed as a historian, and how the social and political struggles in which she engaged informed her thinking. Written in lucid, accessible prose, the essays will appeal to the general reader as well as to students at all levels. Living with History / Making Social Change offers rare insight into the life work of one of the leading historians of the United States.