Using a very wide range of detailed sources, the book surveys the many different experiences of women during the Second World War. Many existing studies on the role of women in the Second World War concentrate on women's increasing participation in the workplace and on their struggles to cope with rationing and shortages. This book goes further, exploring women's wartime experiences much more fully. Drawing on a wide range of sources including oral interviews, scrapbooks, personal letters, diaries, newspaper articles, Mass Observation files and memoirs, the book illustrates some of the similarities and differences of women's wartime experiences in different situations in different countries. Specific subjects covered include experiences of exile and living under occupation, of coping with proximity to fighting and to the frontline, and of dealing with everyday life in trying circumstances. The book draws out how factors such as political beliefs, nationalism, economics, religion, ability, geography and culture all had an impact. Overall, the book reveals a great deal about the complexities and nuances of women's experiences in this period of enormous upheaval. Contributors: Patricia Chappine, Nupur Chaudhuri, Sylvie Crinquand, Beth Hessel, Sarah Hogenbirk, Regina Lark, Bernice Lindner, Alexis Peri, Kelly Spring, Michael Timonin, Angela Wanhalla, Wai-Yin Christina Wong.

Examines the "home front" war effort from an overall imperial perspective, assessing the contribution of individual imperial territories. There is increasing interest in the "home front" during the Second World War, including issues such as how people coped with rationing, how women worked to contribute to the war effort, and how civilian morale fluctuated over time. Most studies on this subject are confined to Britain, or to a single other colonial territory, neglecting the fact that Britain controlled a large Empire and that there were numerous "home fronts", each of which contributed greatly to the war effort but each in slightly different ways. This book considers "home fronts" from an overall imperial perspective and in a broad array of territories - Australia, India, South Africa, Ceylon, Palestine and Kenya aswell as Britain. It examines many aspects of wartime life - food, communications, bombing, volunteering, internment and more, and discusses important themes including identity, gender, inequality, and the relationship between civilians and the state. Besides case studies outlining the detail of the situation in different territories and in different areas of life, the book assesses "home fronts" across the Empire in a comprehensive way, setting the case studies in their wider context, and placing the subject in, and advancing, the historiography. MARK J. CROWLEY is Associate Professor of History at Wuhan University, China. SANDRA TRUDGEN DAWSON is an Instructor in the Department of History at the University of Maryland. Contributors: NUPUR CHAUDHURI, MARK J. CROWLEY, SANDRA TRUDGEN DAWSON, NADJA DURBACH, ASHLEY JACKSON, RITIKA PRASAD, LINSEY ROBB, SHERENE SEIKALY, JEAN SMITH,ANDREW STEWART, PETER THORSHEIM, CHRISTINE WINTER

Copublished with Pace University Press, this book is a valuable addition to scholarship on Bloomsbury, the history of women in Britain, and the work of Leonard and Virginia Woolf. It portrays an era and illuminates the work of a number of famous writers by examining less well-known lives and works that were part of the adaptive complex, or milieu. Several essays and appendices contribute significantly to our understanding of the extent that the Woolfs collaborated with each other and with others. Beside the literary histories of S.P. Rosenbaum, this collection of original essays will be essential reading for students of Bloomsbury and women's history. Illustrated.

..". a lively and interesting book... " American Historical Review

These writers reveal the power relations of gender, class, race, and sexuality at the heart of the imperialisms, colonialisms, and nationalisms that have shaped our modern world. Topics include the (mis)representations of Native women by European colonizers, the violent displacement of women through imperialisms and nationalisms, and the relations between and among feminism, nationalism, imperialism, and colonialism."

"[Western Women and Imperialism] provides fascinating insights intointeractions and attitudes between western and non-western women, mainly in the 19thand early 20th centuries. It is an important contribution to the field of women'sstudies and (primarily British) imperial history, in that many of the essays exploreproblems of cross-cultural interaction that have been heretofore ignored." --Nancy Fix Anderson

"A challenging anthology in which amultiplicity of authors sheds new light on the waves of missionaries, 'memsahibs, 'nurses -- and feminists." -- Ms.

..". a long-overdueengagement with colonial discourse and feminism.... excellent essays..." -- TheYear's Work in Critical Cultural Theory

Award-winning women scholars from nontraditional backgrounds have often negotiated an academic track that leads through figurative--and sometimes literal--minefields. Their life stories offer inspiration, but also describe heartrending struggles and daunting obstacles. Reshaping Women's History presents autobiographical essays by eighteen accomplished scholar-activists who persevered through poverty or abuse, medical malpractice or family disownment, civil war or genocide. As they illuminate their own unique circumstances, the authors also address issues all-too-familiar to women in the academy: financial instability, the need for mentors, explaining gaps in resumes caused by outside events, and coping with gendered family demands, biases, and expectations. Eye-opening and candid, Reshaping Women's History shows how adversity, and the triumph over it, enriches scholarship and spurs extraordinary efforts to affect social change. Contributors: Frances L. Buss, Nupur Chaudhuri, Lisa DiCaprio, Julie R. Enszer, Catherine Fosl, Midori Green, La Shonda Mims, Stephanie Moore, Grey Osterud, Barbara Ransby, Linda Reese, Annette Rodriguez, Linda Rupert, Kathleen Sheldon, Donna Sinclair, Rickie Solinger, Pamela Stewart, Waaseyaa'sin Christine Sy, and Ann Marie Wilson.

This collection of personal narratives by former officers of the Coordinating Council for Women in History weaves together past and present in women s history, and women in the historical profession. Recording the diverse paths taken to become historians, essays describe how a group of women negotiated the often competing demands of being a woman, a professional, and a political activist during the turbulent 1960s through the challenges of the 1990s."