The lyrical and globe-spanning memoir by the influential feminist economist, with introductory pieces from two American icons "Your heart and world will be opened by reading The Brass Notebook, the intimate and political life of Devaki Jain, a young woman who dares to become independent." -Gloria Steinem When she was barely thirty, the Indian feminist economist Devaki Jain befriended Doris Lessing, Nobel winner and author of The Golden Notebook, who encouraged Jain to write her story. Over half a century later, Jain has crafted what Desmond Tutu has called "a riveting account of the life story of a courageous woman who has all her life challenged what convention expects of her." Across an extraordinary life intertwined with those of Iris Murdoch, Gloria Steinem, Julius Nyerere, Henry Kissinger, and Nelson Mandela, Jain navigated a world determined to contain her ambitions. While still a young woman, she traveled alone across the subcontinent to meet Gandhi's disciple Vinoba Bhave, hitchhiked around Europe in a sari, and fell in love with a Yugoslav at a Quaker camp in Saarbrucken. She attended Oxford University, supporting herself by washing dishes in a local cafe. Later, over the course of an influential career as an economist, Jain seized on the cause of feminism, championing the poor women who labored in the informal economy long before mainstream economics attended to questions of inequality. With a foreword by Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen and an introduction by the well-known American feminist Gloria Steinem, whose own life and career were inspired by time spent with Jain, The Brass Notebook perfectly merges the political with the personal-a book full of life, ideas, politics, and history.

Faye V. Harrison's collection of essays focuses on the intersections between race, gender, sexuality, class, and nationality that exert a huge influence on human rights conflicts around the world. Using compelling examples, the authors illustrate the central premise that understanding the dynamics of these intersections has important implications for effectively confronting oppression and constructing positive change. Investigating conflicts in Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Australia, they also reflect upon political concerns and anxieties worldwide that have grown out of the catasrophe of 9/11. The contributors comprise an internationally diverse group of anthropologists and human rights activists concerned with global, culturally diverse, gendered experiences. This anthology will be valuable to instructors, human rights workers, and applied professionals in anthropology, gender studies, ethnic studies, and international human rights.

Faye V. Harrison's collection of essays focuses on the intersections between race, gender, sexuality, class, and nationality that exert a huge influence on human rights conflicts around the world. Using compelling examples, the authors illustrate the central premise that understanding the dynamics of these intersections has important implications for effectively confronting oppression and constructing positive change. Investigating conflicts in Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Australia, they also reflect upon political concerns and anxieties worldwide that have grown out of the catasrophe of 9/11. The contributors comprise an internationally diverse group of anthropologists and human rights activists concerned with global, culturally diverse, gendered experiences. This anthology will be valuable to instructors, human rights workers, and applied professionals in anthropology, gender studies, ethnic studies, and international human rights.

"Devaki Jain opens the doors of the United Nations and shows how it has changed the female half of the world and vice versa. Women, Development, and the UN is a book that every global citizen, government leader, journalist, academic, and self-respecting woman should read." Gloria Steinem

"Devaki Jain s book nurtures your optimism in this terrible war-torn decade by describing how women succeeded in empowering both themselves and the United Nations to work toward a global leadership inspired by human dignity." Fatema Mernissi

In Women, Development, and the UN, internationally noted development economist and activist Devaki Jain traces the ways in which women have enriched the work of the United Nations from the time of its founding in 1945. Synthesizing insights from the extensive literature on women and development and from her own broad experience, Jain reviews the evolution of the UN s programs aimed at benefiting the women of developing nations and the impact of women s ideas about rights, equality, and social justice on UN thinking and practice regarding development. Jain presents this history from the perspective of the southern hemisphere, which recognizes that development issues often look different when viewed from the standpoint of countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The book highlights the contributions of the four global women s conferences in Mexico City, Copenhagen, Nairobi, and Beijing in raising awareness, building confidence, spreading ideas, and creating alliances. The history that Jain chronicles reveals both the achievements of committed networks of women in partnership with the UN and the urgent work remaining to bring equality and justice to the world and its women."