From Margin to Centre: Recent Trends in Modern Italian Women's and Gender History

Abstract

This article reviews the considerable progress that has been made in modern Italian women's and gender history over the last decade. It puts forward the argument that such history, whose roots lie primarily in the feminist movement of the 1970s, was until recently consigned to the margins of the historical establishment but is now beginning to make a much greater impact. The article looks at the richness of the current wave of new publications and the wide range of topics they cover but argues that in a number of areas the historiography is still somewhat uneven. It also suggests that there is a pressing need for works of synthesis to draw together the research that has been done to date.

Book Reviews

“…Women in Italy, 1945Italy, -1960 This book is an excellent addition to the literature in English on Italian gender history, which has only recently overcome its marginal status and shifted focus from the medieval and early modern periods to the more recent past (Willson 2006). The period 1945The period -1960 …”

Women in Italy, 1945–1960: An interdisciplinary study, edited by Penelope Morris, New York/Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, 246 pp., £40.00 (hardback), ISBN 1 4039 7099 8

“…Women in Italy, 1945Italy, -1960: An interdisciplinary study, edited by Penelope Morris, New York/Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, 246 pp., £40.00 (hardback), ISBN 1 4039 7099 8 This book is an excellent addition to the literature in English on Italian gender history, which has only recently overcome its marginal status and shifted focus from the medieval and early modern periods to the more recent past (Willson 2006). The period 1945The period -1960 saw the aftermath of the Second World War, reconstruction, female suffrage, the Cold War, American consumerist influences and the beginning of the postwar boom.…”