Book Reviews

GISELA BOCK and ANNE COVA (eds), Writing Women's History in Southern Europe, 19th-20th Centuries/Ecrire l'histoire des femmes en Europe du Sud XIXe-XXe Siècles (Celta Editora, Oeiras, 2003), 183 pp., ISBN 9-72774-149-5 (pb) This book is the outcome of the very first meeting to be held to explore the state of gender history in Southern Europe—or rather, of South-Western Europe. It focused on ‘writing women's history’, and by choosing this terminology, the editors express their desire to recall the path-breaking volume Writing Women's History: International Perspectives by Karen M.Offen, Ruth R. Pierson, and Jane Rendall (Bloomington and London, Indiana University Press and Macmillan, 1991), as well as Françoise Thébaud's Ecrire l'histoire des femmes (Fontenay/Saint Cloud, ENS, 1998). Echoing this, the editors have produced a bilingual volume in English and French, a welcome initiative that addresses the fact that French was the first foreign language taught in schools in South-Western European countries until a decade or two ago, and attempts to take a step back from Anglo-centric history. The book comprises discussions of the historiography of women in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece, followed by a shorter 40-page section on recent research on women in Portugal (as the book is edited there and the conference, held in Arrábida, was a Portuguese historians' initiative).