Editors:
- Includes both English and continental women thinkers
- Provides an introduction to the thought of little known women thinkers
- Treats women’s ideas with philosophical sophistication as part of the history of political thought
- Examines a period (1400-1600) that has received little attention in the history of women’s ideas
Part of the book series: The New Synthese Historical Library (SYNL, volume 63)
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Table of contents (11 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
About this book
This volume challenges the view that women have not contributed to the historical development of political ideas, and highlights the depth and complexity of women’s political thought in the centuries prior to the French Revolution.
From the late medieval period to the enlightenment, a significant number of European women wrote works dealing with themes of political significance. The essays in this collection examine their writings with particular reference to the ideas of virtue, liberty, and toleration. The figures discussed include Christine de Pizan, Catherine d’Amboise, Isabella d’Este, Elizabeth I, Katherine Chidley, Elizabeth Poole, Margaret Cavendish, Damaris Masham, Mary Astell, Elizabeth Carter, Catharine Macaulay, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Cornélie Wouters. These women actively contributed to the political practice and discourse of their times. Some of the women question their exclusion from political power and argue in favour of women’s virtue, prudence, and capacity to govern. Others aim to demonstrate women’s spiritual equality with men, to defend liberty of conscience, and to highlight the importance of education as a means to moral development. And some women explore the notion of female citizenship or attempt to come to terms with issues of religious freedom and religious toleration.
Virtue, Liberty, and Toleration serves as an introduction to a rich and as yet under-explored period in the history of women’s ideas.
Editors and Affiliations
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Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Jacqueline Broad, Karen Green
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Virtue, Liberty, and Toleration
Book Subtitle: Political Ideas of European Women, 1400-1800
Editors: Jacqueline Broad, Karen Green
Series Title: The New Synthese Historical Library
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5895-0
Publisher: Springer Dordrecht
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, History (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4020-5894-3Published: 24 July 2007
Softcover ISBN: 978-90-481-7470-6Published: 20 November 2010
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4020-5895-0Published: 23 July 2007
Series ISSN: 1879-8578
Series E-ISSN: 2352-2585
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXII, 216
Topics: History, general, History of Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Gender Studies