This classic two-volume history is an exciting and revolutionary look at women's history from prehistoric times to the present. Its unique organization focuses on the developments, achievements, and changes in women's roles in society. Rather than examining women's history as an inevitable progression of events along a strict timeline, this text is organized within a loose chronology, with chapters focusing on women's place and function in society. This revised edition provides a new introduction, an updated epilogue on women's lives in Europe since 1988, and a completely revised bibliography that includes recent scholarship. A History of Their Own restores women to the historical record, brings their history into focus, and provides models of female action and heroism. Lively and engaging, this new edition takes readers on a fascinating journey through women's history and the changing roles they have played. In addition it is an ideal text for general courses in women's studies and women's history and more specialized courses focusing on women in European history. Volume One covers women's history from the prehistoric period to the seventeenth century. It includes topics such as the treatment of and attitudes about women during earliest recorded history; the alternating forces of empowerment and subordination imposed on women by ancient religions and the emergence of Christianity; peasant women's daily experiences of childbirth, family life, and field labor; women's religious lives; and the contrast between the lives of noblewomen and the lives of townswomen in early modern Europe.

A life-long New Yorker, Bonnie S. Anderson is a Professor of History at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, where she teaches women's history and British history. With Judith Zinsser, she co-authored the classic two-volume narrative A History of Their Own: Women

in Europe from Prehistory to the Present (revised edition, OUP, 1999). Long active in the women's movement, she has been a volunteer rape crisis counselor at St. Vincent's Hospital in Greenwich Village for over ten years.

Judith P. Zinsser is a professor of history at Miami University in Ohio. She is coauthor of the acclaimed "A History of Their Own" and author of "History and Feminism,"