Women's War

Women's War is a compelling and gracefully written book, rich with far-reaching insights that will interest readers of women's history, Civil War history, and the broader history of war. Rather than an expansive exploration of American women's Civil War experiences, Stephanie McCurry's book is a more focused look at three specific developments that showcase the essential place of women in the U.S. sectional conflict: the Union military's confrontation with female Confederates, the unfolding of slave emancipation, and the attempt by the slaveholding class to reclaim a semblance of order in the postwar world. In exploring these topics, McCurry analyzes how wars build on and affirm the patriarchal order in capitalist (and presumably precapitalist) societies—especially through the marital relationship—even as they also push that patriarchal order toward modern adaptations. Ultimately, McCurry suggests, the commitment to patriarchy underscores the urgency of her project: women's central place in war, including the Civil War, has been repeatedly erased because the ideology of patriarchy insists on women's passivity and innocence in wartime

Emancipation · Ideology · Innocence · Order (exchange · Patriarchy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · European history and politics · Gender Studies · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · History · Law

• Civil War Settlers

  Open Access•Anders Bo Rasmussen•Civil War Settlers•2022

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