MERRY E. WIESNER-HANKS is Distinguished Professor of History and Women's and Gender Studies Emerita, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA. She is an esteemed historian whose work has been central to the integration of women, gender, and sexuality into the study of early modern Europe and World/Global History. She is the long-time Senior Editor of the Sixteenth Century Journal and author or editor of thirty books and many articles that have been published in numerous languages.

List of Figures viii

Acknowledgments ix

About the Companion Website x

1 Introduction 1

Women's and Gender History 1

World and Global History 4

Gender, Sex, and Sexuality 6

Difference and Intersectionality 9

Theory in History 11

Gender History as a Field 15

Structure of the Book 17

2 Ideas, Ideals, Norms, and Laws 23

The Nature and Roles of Men and Women 26

Binaries 32

Motherhood and Fatherhood 36

Ideologies, Norms, and Laws Prescribing Gender Inequity 39

Ideologies of Egalitarianism 42

3 Early Human History (to 3000 bce) 53

Early Hominids 54

Homo Sapiens 58

Paleolithic Society and Spirituality 61

Domestication 66

Agricultural Societies 68

The Origins of Patriarchy 72

4 Ancient Cities and States (3000 bce-600 bce) 85

Cities and Social Hierarchies 86

Writing 91

Families and Households 96

Work 103

Religions in the Ancient Near East 106

Hereditary Dynasties and Female Rulers 111

5 Classical Cultures (500 bce-500 ce) 120

Family Life in the Classical Cultures of Eurasia 121

Sexuality in Classical Eurasia 127

Philosophy and Religion in East Asia: Confucianism and Daoism 130

Religious Traditions of South Asia: Hinduism and Buddhism 132

Religious Traditions in the Mediterranean: Christianity 139

Education and Culture 143

6 The Middle Millennium (500 ce-1500 ce) 153

Families, Households, and Kin in Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific 154

Religious Traditions Transmitted Orally 158

State Based Societies in the Americas 162

Courts and Courtly Culture 164

The Rise and Spread of Islam 168

Europe and the Mediterranean 174

Cities and the Gendering of Work 177

7 The Early Modern World (1500 ce-1800 ce) 184

Economic Developments 185

The Renaissance 191

Religious Transformations 197

Families and Race 200

Representations of Conquest and Colonialization 206

Women and Politics 208

8 The Modern World (1800 ce-2021 ce) 220

Industrialization 221

Imperialism 227

Nineteenth-century Movements for Social Change 229

Modern Sexuality 236

Wars, Revolutions, and Political Change 243

The Industrial and Postindustrial Economy 251

Families in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries 258

Cultural Changes in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries 264

Afterword 277

Index 282