Women in political theory Book

This acclaimed textbook looks at how misogyny and Western political thought were inttertwined in their origins and how this relationship has worked itself out throught the classic texts of traditional and modern political theory. The revised edition brings up to date this analysis of attitudes towards women and the roles correspondingly assigned to them in economy, society and state. Although such roles were generally judged to be inferior and presented as secondary to those of men, one of the book's major aims is to demonstrate the crucial contribution women were implicitly assumed to make in the development of civic virtue and political stability. From this perspective, the private lives and emotional capacities ascribed to women actually took on a vital public significance. This often-neglected aspect of the history of political thought is, therefore, vital to any full understanding of the tradition and its major thinkers. The updated analysis of individual thinkers is accompanied by a new introduction and conclusion which bring the debates on the tipic right up to date. The new concluding chapter discusses contemporary feminist theory through poststructuralist and postmodernist themes, which allows for a reappraisal of the critical perspectives brought to bear in the earlier chapters. The second edition of Women in Political Theory continues to provide an invaluable insight into the role and nature of gender in political theory for students and researchers of the history of political thought, political theory and philosophy and feminist theory. Diana Coole is Lecturer in Politics at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London.