The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment Book

This seems at first glance to be a perfect contribution to the 1990s golden age of women's and gender history, which makes it a little odd that Goodman packages it as a cultural history rather than as a gender history. She does claim to be writing a "feminist history," but she doesn't make a big deal about it. Perhaps she was worried that overtly categorizing it under the "women and gender" label would ghettoize it, but the problem is that people who specialize in gender and could include her book in their readings will not necessarily find it.
This would be a shame, because her argument is really interesting. Goodman radically reinterprets 17th and 18th century French society, arguing that the French state was composed of two distinct but dependant parts: the monarchical government and the Republic of Letters. These made up a "double helix of early modern France," and one half of the helix was gendered feminine and depended on the active participation of women. This was the Republic, the world of the female salonnieres, who hosted regular gatherings of philosophes in their homes. Previous historians have tended to dismiss the importance of these women to the enlightenment project, and in fact many have treated the salonnieres as constraints on intellectual innovation and freedom. According to this interpretation, men could only do the serious intellectual work of the enlightenment in the absence of women. But Goodman rejects this argument. Far from being a constraint, women were absolutely necessary to the political identity of the Republic of Letters. The Republic was born and grew partly in response to the very contentious world of medieval and early modern education, which was founded on disputation and argument. Female salonnieres, by contrast, provided balance and conflict resolution, a civil forum for the peaceful sharing of ideas, and this alternative intellectual culture could not function without an active, guiding female influence. Additionally, the salonnieres provided "republican" authority, in contrast to royal authority, which resolved disputes through the imposition of ultimate power. The salonniere, Goodman argues, was akin to the president of a Republic, arbitrating disputes through mutual consent. When debate left the salons it became too competitive and cutthroat.
By the end of her book, Goodman has made a great argument for the importance of both actual women and the dynamic between femininity and masculinity to interpretations of the French Enlightenment and the French Revolution. This should be on both French Enlightenment reading lists AND gender history reading lists.