Themes in Comparative History – serie

This comparative study analyses the emergence of feminist movements and their differing characters in Britain, France and the United States. Jane Rendall examines the social, economic and cultural factors which affected women's status in society, and led some women to act, individually and collectively, to seek to change it.The Enlightenment emphasis on women's 'nature' and the evangelical stress on the moral potential of women contributed to a framework of ideas which could be used by conservatives and by feminists. Among the middle classes, discussion focused on the need to improve women's education and on the strengths and limitations of domesticity. Patterns of paid employment for women were shifting, and Jane Rendall suggests that the weak position of women in the labor market during the early stages of industrialisation restricted their ability to associate together. Yet involvement in religious, political and philanthropic movements could provide a means by which women might come together to identify their common concerns and learn the necessary political skills.Jane Rendall places the origins of feminism in the broader context of social and political change in the nineteenth century, looking both at the changing relationship between paid work and domestic life and at the links between feminism and class and political conflict in three different societies.

One of the most dramatically significant themes of the twentieth century has been the decline and final dismemberment of the European colonial empires. This book outlines the general features which influence this decline and, by concentrating on a series of case studies, emphasises the varieties of experience within this broad historical process.While primarily concerned with events in the British Empire, the largest of the imperial systems, Dr Holland also considers developments in the French, Belgian, Dutch and Portuguese dependencies. The chronologically arranged sections focus on the sources of weakness in the European empires between 1918 and 1939; the impact of the Second World War; the upheavals of the post-war crisis; the move to decolonization in the later 1950's and early 1960's; and the subsequent realignment of relations between advanced and non-advanced nations.The aim of this study is to provide an introductory text for sixth form and university students on a vital dimension of change within international relationships in twentieth century.

This book aims to investigate the comparative development of the main forms of mass media (the press, film and broadcasting) in three societies - the United States, Great Britain and Germany - between 1890 and 1970. The main emphasis is on the political frameworks in which the media developed and the influence upon individual societies as well as on the international framework. This is the first work to provide access for students to much of the recent work on the history of the mass media.

Europe and the Third World provides a schematic historical analysis of the relations between Europe and the extra-European periphery within the twin contexts of global economic inequality and global disparities in political power. The colonial and imperial relationships between western Europe and the wider world since the late fifteenth century, and the course and consequences of decolonization, form the substance of the discussion, which concludes with a glance at the links between the European Union and the world's poorest states, most of which are former colonies.