British Women Writers and the Writing of History, 1670-1820

Download or read book British Women Writers and the Writing of History, 1670-1820 written by Devoney Looser and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2000-11-10 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Until recently, history writing has been understood as a male enclave from which women were restricted, particularly prior to the 19th century. This work takes a look at British women writers and their contributions to historiography during the long 18th century. It asks why, rather than writing history that included their own sex, some women of this period chose to write the same kind of history as men -one that marginalized or excluded women altogether. But as Devoney Looser demonstrates, although British women's historically informed writings were not necessarily feminist or even female-focused, they were intimately involved in debates over and conversations about the genre of history.