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- A major new collection of essays by leading scholars of the social, political, economic and cultural situation of women and men in early modern Europe.
Feminist history continues to change the way history is written,
and in doing so changes our view of the past. The authors of this
collection explore how issues of sexuality, class, nationalism and
colonialism informed the ways in which women were represented and
continue to be represented in history. They show the ways in which
women have been excluded, silenced and misrepresented in stories of
the past, and how women's lives have been distorted or simplified
in conventional historical accounts. Together, they suggest fresh
ways of approaching women's history, and use examples of work in
new areas of research such as women's health and leisure in order
to demonstrate the effectiveness of the various methodologies being
proposed.
Exploiting the turbulence and strife of sixteenth-century France,
the House of Guise arose from a provincial power base to establish
themselves as dominant political players in France and indeed
Europe, marrying within royal and princely circles and occupying
the most important ecclesiastical and military positions. Propelled
by ambitions derived from their position as cadets of a minor
sovereign house, they represent a cadre of early modern elites who
are difficult to categorise neatly: neither fully sovereign princes
nor fully subject nobility. They might have spent most of their
time in one state, France, but their interests were always
'trans-national'; contested spaces far from the major centres of
monarchical power - from the Ardennes to the Italian peninsula -
were frequent theatres of activity for semi-sovereign border
families such as the Lorraine-Guise. This nexus of activity, and
the interplay between princely status and representation, is the
subject of this book. The essays in this collection approach Guise
aims, ambitions and self-fashioning using this 'trans-national'
dimension as context: their desire for increased royal (rather than
merely princely) power and prestige, and the use of representation
(visual and literary) in order to achieve it. Guise claims to
thrones and territories from Jerusalem to Naples are explored,
alongside the Guise 'dream of Italy', with in-depth studies of
Henry of Lorraine, fifth Duke of Guise, and his attempts in the
mid-seventeenth century to gain a throne in Naples. The combination
of the violence and drama of their lives at the centres of European
power and their adroit use of publicity ensured that versions of
their strongly delineated images were appropriated by chroniclers,
playwrights and artists, in which they sometimes featured as they
would have wished, as heroes and heroines, frequently as villains,
and ultimately as characters in the narratives of national
heritage.
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David Walliams
Paperback
R295
R200
Discovery Miles 2 000
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