Here are 100 books that The Incorporated Wife fans have personally recommended if you like
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I am a historian with a doctorate and years of experience in diplomatic history. While researching a foreign minister’s policy decisions, I stumbled across his wife’s diaries. Later, I went back to read them. What started as sheer curiosity turned into a mission when I realised how vital diplomats’ wives were to the functioning of twentieth-century diplomacy. Yet I had spent years in the field without reading about the influence of gender. I wrote a book to bridge the gap and challenge the idea that diplomatic history can disregard gender if its focus is political. The books on my list show how everyday gendered practices are connected to political power.
I quoted Mary Beard in the conclusion of my book, where I spoke of the position of women in the informal power structures of diplomacy.
The call for a redefinition of power in her manifesto Women & Power hit home for me. Beard points out how subjective our perception of power is, urging us to reflect on what power is for and how we measure it. Rather than just lamenting women’s lack of power through history, Beard adds another dimension by suggesting that it is not women we need to change, but rather our skewed definition of power.
Her analysis of the relationship between women and power in the Western tradition provides a historical background of misogyny that is not only to the point but also a literary delight. Read it.
At long last, Mary Beard addresses in one brave book the misogynists and trolls who mercilessly attack and demean women the world over, including, very often, Mary herself. In Women & Power, she traces the origins of this misogyny to its ancient roots, examining the pitfalls of gender and the ways that history has mistreated strong women since time immemorial. As far back as Homer's Odyssey, Beard shows, women have been prohibited from leadership roles in civic life, public speech being defined as inherently male. From Medusa to Philomela (whose tongue was cut out), from Hillary Clinton to Elizabeth Warren…
As an essayist, literary critic, and professor of literature, books are what John Milton calls my ‘pretious life-blood.’ As a writer, teacher, and editor, I spend my days trying to make meaning out of reading. This is the idea behind my most recent book, On Purpose: it’s easy to make vague claims about the edifying powers of ‘great writing,’ but what does this actually mean? How can literature help us live? My five recommendations all help us reflect on the power of books to help us think for ourselves, as I hope do my own books, including The Midlife Mind (2020) and Comparative Literature: A Very Short Introduction (2018).
I love this book not just because of its enduring importance - Woolf remains a towering feminist figure - but because of its vivid, imaginative writing.
Based on lectures given to female students at Cambridge, Woolf’s essay argues powerfully for the intellectual independence of women. Such independence, she reasons, must first be materially possible, hence the female writer’s need for that famous "room of one’s own."
To exemplify this, Woolf imagines a certain Judith Shakespeare, the playwright’s equally talented sister: would she not be incapable of achieving the same success as her brother owing to the patriarchal structures of society? In our post-Me Too world a century later, the question remains vital.
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization, and helped make us who we are.
My interest in bureaucratic power and its pervasive control grew out of my social and feminist activity no less than from my critical thinking about State institutions. Combining field research as a social anthropologist with my activism exposed me to the harmful implications of bureaucratic power. I delved into social and gender power relations in contexts like absorption centers with immigrants from Ethiopia, women's empowerment projects in "developing" countries, threatened motherhood in the welfare state, and others. My personal experience as an involved participant enabled me to better understand the ethnocentric and exploiting nature of international development projects, of Israeli "absorbing" agencies, and of child care policies.
I cherish this groundbreaking book because it clarified to me the role of State bureaucracy behind various social phenomena, among which are: the connection between bureaucrats' power and violent behavior and the profound impact of State agencies on immigrants' integration processes.
The book's theoretical approach, which is based on power-dependence relations, encouraged me in analyzing the absorption of immigrants from Ethiopia (my PhD thesis) in terms of bureaucratic control rather than through cultural background and differences.
Not less important, this book was authored by the late Prof. Emanuel Marx, who was my admired supervisor and a very dear friend for over 40 years.
First published in 1976. Violent behaviour occurs in every society. It grows out of the social order and can therefore be understood only in a social context. This book examines an orderly and relatively tranquil society, a small Israeli town settled by new immigrants, which is run by public agencies who pour in their resources to maintain the inhabitants. Circumstances have made the town an egalitarian society, but also limit its members' economic opportunities. This society has produced its special combinations of violent behaviour. The analysis extensively employs the 'case method' which has increasingly been used by social anthropologists.
My interest in bureaucratic power and its pervasive control grew out of my social and feminist activity no less than from my critical thinking about State institutions. Combining field research as a social anthropologist with my activism exposed me to the harmful implications of bureaucratic power. I delved into social and gender power relations in contexts like absorption centers with immigrants from Ethiopia, women's empowerment projects in "developing" countries, threatened motherhood in the welfare state, and others. My personal experience as an involved participant enabled me to better understand the ethnocentric and exploiting nature of international development projects, of Israeli "absorbing" agencies, and of child care policies.
This book served me greatly in teaching courses on education and social stratification in Israel.
Its ethnography is fascinating and although it was published some 55 years ago its insights are still compelling and relevant. The book exposes the veiled bureaucratic interests which pull the strings behind the curtains of the educational system rather than ideals of justice and equity.
This critical analysis influenced my understanding with regard to the emergence of discrimination and racism that were the outcomes of concentrating Ethiopian children in separate classes for a long time.
My interest in bureaucratic power and its pervasive control grew out of my social and feminist activity no less than from my critical thinking about State institutions. Combining field research as a social anthropologist with my activism exposed me to the harmful implications of bureaucratic power. I delved into social and gender power relations in contexts like absorption centers with immigrants from Ethiopia, women's empowerment projects in "developing" countries, threatened motherhood in the welfare state, and others. My personal experience as an involved participant enabled me to better understand the ethnocentric and exploiting nature of international development projects, of Israeli "absorbing" agencies, and of child care policies.
I "discovered" Hancock's book by coincidence in the summer of 2000, when I stayed in Oxford.
While working on my book I met a scholar who recommended me the book when he learned about my study. He thought that Hancock's book could offer me some exciting insights. Reading the book was overwhelming for me, as I found out that my "Nepali experience" in the context of a women's development project was not exceptional.
I realized then that my critical analysis gained further evidence, through elaborating on Hancock's numerous examples from other places where the World Bank and Western Capitalist agencies were involved.
Each year some sixty billion dollars are spent on foreign aid throughout the world. Whether in donations to charities such as Save the Children, Oxfam, CARE, UNICEF, or the Red Cross, in the form of enormous loans from the World Bank, or as direct payments from one government to another, the money is earmarked for the needy, for relief in natural disasters—floods or famines, earthquakes, or droughts—and for assistance in the development of nations.
The magnitude of generosity from the world’s wealthy nations suggests the possibility of easing, if not eliminating, hunger, misery, and poverty; in truth, however, only a…
My interest in bureaucratic power and its pervasive control grew out of my social and feminist activity no less than from my critical thinking about State institutions. Combining field research as a social anthropologist with my activism exposed me to the harmful implications of bureaucratic power. I delved into social and gender power relations in contexts like absorption centers with immigrants from Ethiopia, women's empowerment projects in "developing" countries, threatened motherhood in the welfare state, and others. My personal experience as an involved participant enabled me to better understand the ethnocentric and exploiting nature of international development projects, of Israeli "absorbing" agencies, and of child care policies.
I think that Riane Eisler's book is a must-read piece for feminists, historians, and social activists working for justice and equality.
The book offered me an original outlook on male dominance in human society over the ages. Learning that women had an immense impact on the emergence of the major religions was exhilarating. The historical descriptions of the evolution of patriarchy demonstrated how it was constructed through the marginalization and exclusion of women from leading positions and by the use of violence.
My work on the sex industry, indicating how the exploitation of women's sexuality served in establishing males' dominance was significantly influenced by this book.
Now with an updated epilogue celebrating the 30th anniversary of this groundbreaking and increasingly relevant book.
"May be the most significant work published in all our lifetimes." – LA Weekly
The Chalice and the Blade tells a new story of our cultural origins. It shows that warfare and the war of the sexes are neither divinely nor biologically ordained. It provides verification that a better future is possible—and is in fact firmly rooted in the haunting dramas of what happened in our past.
I am a historian with a doctorate and years of experience in diplomatic history. While researching a foreign minister’s policy decisions, I stumbled across his wife’s diaries. Later, I went back to read them. What started as sheer curiosity turned into a mission when I realised how vital diplomats’ wives were to the functioning of twentieth-century diplomacy. Yet I had spent years in the field without reading about the influence of gender. I wrote a book to bridge the gap and challenge the idea that diplomatic history can disregard gender if its focus is political. The books on my list show how everyday gendered practices are connected to political power.
Before I read Women and States, I was familiar with the concept of like-minded states and aware that similar or different normative values could complicate or facilitate the cooperation between states.
Yet, I had never considered those norms in terms of international status. Political scientist Ann Towns convincingly argues that, like any society, international society is social. To arrange relations, whether familial, local, or global, norms are used to compare and rank.
Contrary to a society built on shared values, though, international society incorporates parallel and conflicting values in an inherently unequal system, making for the coupling of norms to international status.
I love how Towns uses this simple and elegant observation to connect the political emancipation of women in different national contexts to (changing) hierarchical norms between states. Identifying links like these between local and so-called big politics is vital for better understanding international power relations.
Momentous changes in the relation between women and the state have advanced women's status around the globe. Women were barred from public affairs a century ago, yet almost every state now recognizes equal voting rights and exhibits a national policy bureau for the advancement of women. Sex quotas for national legislatures are increasingly common. Ann E. Towns explains these changes by providing a novel account of how norms work in international society. She argues that norms don't just provide standards for states, they rank them, providing comparative judgments which place states in hierarchical social orders. This focus on the link…
I am a historian with a doctorate and years of experience in diplomatic history. While researching a foreign minister’s policy decisions, I stumbled across his wife’s diaries. Later, I went back to read them. What started as sheer curiosity turned into a mission when I realised how vital diplomats’ wives were to the functioning of twentieth-century diplomacy. Yet I had spent years in the field without reading about the influence of gender. I wrote a book to bridge the gap and challenge the idea that diplomatic history can disregard gender if its focus is political. The books on my list show how everyday gendered practices are connected to political power.
Roosevelt's Lost Alliances is perhaps the book that has had the most tangible influence on my own work. Seeing how Frank Costigliola highlighted and analysed the political consequences of personal preferences and relations was eye-opening.
When the book appeared, some reviewers claimed that Costigliola made leaders' personalities all-important and overlooked structural factors. Because I had read that criticism before I read the book, I was surprised to find a nuanced account of how personal and political factors intersected. I found those reviews blatantly unfair.
By carefully analysing their personal preferences and relations, Costigliola did not claim that a few powerful men determined history. Rather, he showed how emotional and cultural factors, which are surely structural, influenced them and their decision-making.
In the spring of 1945, as the Allied victory in Europe was approaching, the shape of the postwar world hinged on the personal politics and flawed personalities of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. "Roosevelt's Lost Alliances" captures this moment and shows how FDR crafted a winning coalition by overcoming the different habits, upbringings, sympathies, and past experiences of the three leaders. In particular, Roosevelt trained his famous charm on Stalin, lavishing respect on him, salving his insecurities, and rendering him more amenable to compromise on some matters. Yet, even as he pursued a lasting peace, FDR was alienating his own intimate…
I began studying women’s lives in college (1960s), but recently realized that I (like others) passed myself off as a gender specialist, but had been ignoring men’s roles, beliefs, and behaviour in gender dynamics. I was put off by the studies that too consistently showed men as always violent and controlling. Many studies emphasized men at war, men abusing women, and gay men with HIV/AIDS; there seemed no recognition of positive masculine traits. Recognizing also that men had different ideals about their own masculinity in different places, I examined men’s lives among international elites and in communities in the US, Sumatra, and Indonesia, where I’d done ethnographic research.
Gridiron Gourmet likewise returns to a world somewhat familiar to me. Having grown up American, with a father and brother seriously enamored of football, I understood a certain amount about American ideas of sports and manhood. Football (and other men’s sports) had also played an important role in the community of Bushler Bay (on the Olympic Peninsula), where I had lived and conducted ethnographic research among loggers in the 1970s. At that time, folks there had seen football as one important avenue for young men to learn teamwork, competition, and discipline – traits considered key in making a livelihood. Gridiron Gourmetbuilds on my own understanding, adding the current emphasis on foods men consider appropriate and ‘manly’ to eat. Although I had some sense of this preference, this book clarifies common perspectives among American men in much more detail.
On football weekends in the United States, thousands of fans gather in the parking lots outside of stadiums, where they park their trucks, let down the gates, and begin a pregame ritual of drinking and grilling.
Tailgating, which began in the early 1900s as a quaint picnic lunch outside of the stadium, has evolved into a massive public social event with complex menus, extravagant creative fare, and state-of-art grilling equipment. Unlike traditional notions of the home kitchen, the blacktop is a highly masculine culinary environment in which men and the food they cook are often the star attractions.
I’ve always searched for personalities – mythological, literary, or real – affirming the highest ethical claims for justice. Sophocles’s Antigone is, without doubt, the preeminent example of this ethical demand, based on ancient unwritten laws and related demands for human dignity. As a woman, Antigone also presents the forgotten and suppressed orders of femininity, which were present in all archaic religions and mythologies, but later repressed and fully replaced with exclusively male Gods. I’m therefore interested in books that guide us in this search for the power of ethics and femininity and hope this list will give you an idea of the rich ethical potentials that we possess.
This book is a fascinating collection of essays on Antigone, written by key contemporary thinkers, such as Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, Judith Butler, Bracha L. Ettinger, and Adriana Cavarero. Hegel daringly compared Antigone to Socrates and Jesus and this book shows the full range of ethical questions and consequences, related to Antigone and her highest ethical demand. Through this book, the fictitious woman from Sophocles’ drama written 2,500 years ago, incarnates in front of us as a living figure of contemporary feminine ethics.
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