A History of Women in 101 Objects : A walk through female history

by Hirsch, Annabelle | Social & cultural history
Published 27/02/2025 by Canongate Books in the United Kingdom
Paperback | 416 pages
200 x 130 x 25mm | 284g

A WATERSTONES BEST BOOK OF 2023This is a neglected history. Not a sweeping, definitive, exhaustive history of the world but something quieter, more intimate and particular. A journey, picked out in 101 objects, through the fascinating, too-often-overlooked, manifold histories of women.

Open up this cabinet of curiosities and you'll find objects that have been highly esteemed and others that are humble and domestic. Some (like a sixteenth century glass dildo) are objects of female pleasure, some (a thumbscrew) of female subjugation. There are artefacts of women celebrated by history and of women unfairly forgotten by it; examples of female rebellion and of self-revelation; objects that are inspiring, curious or (like radium-laced chocolate) just fundamentally ill-conceived. In this compendium, Annabelle Hirsch reveals a new history - teeming, unexpected, witty and always illuminating.