Beyond Separate Spheres: Intellectual Roots of Modern Feminism, by Rosalind Rosenberg

This lucid study moves changing ideas about sex roles from the margins to the center of intellectual history. With superb insight and erudition Rosenberg discerns the connections between social science and feminism which replaced the ideal of 'true womanhood' with 'the new woman' at the turn of the 20th century. Besides brilliantly illuminating the personalities and ideas which led from one intellectual era to another, the book contributes groundbreaking research to the question of feminism's fate in the 1920s.-Nancy F. Cott Weaving anecdote and analysis, Rosenberg shows how the women's experiences in academic and institutional settings influenced the direction and content of their theoretical work.-Kathryn Kish Sklar, The Wilson Quarterly