Timeline of International Women’s Activism in 1919
List of Illustrations
Prologue: The Closing Days of the First World War
1. A New Year in Paris: Women’s Rights at the Peace Conference of
1919
2. Winter of Our Discontent: Racial Justice in a New World
Order
3. March(ing) in Cairo: Women’s Awakening and the Egyptian
Revolution of 1919
4. Springtime in Zurich: Former Enemies in Pursuit of Peace and
Freedom
5. May Flowers in China: The Feminist Origins of Chinese
Nationalism
6. Autumn on the Potomac: Women Workers and the Quest for Social
Justice
Epilogue: Rome, 1923
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Notes
Index
Mona L. Siegel is professor of history at California State University, Sacramento. She is the author of The Moral Disarmament of France: Education, Pacifism, and Patriotism, 1914–1940 (2004).
A stunning retelling of the Great War’s aftermath and how women
rose up at the war’s end to demand a different and better world.
Siegel’s evocative prose transports us back in time and around the
world as women from east, west, north, and south descend on
Versailles in pursuit of their rights. Peace on Our Terms is a
stirring, extraordinary tale of how the denial of voice to more
than half the world’s people shaped our time. This is history and
drama at its finest.
*Dorothy Sue Cobble, coauthor of Feminism Unfinished: A Short,
Surprising History of American Women's Movements*
Siegel models beautifully the capacity for academic scholarship to
draw transnational connections within a complex, multilingual
project. Few scholars have this capacity for such beautiful
writing. The book is truly engaging, and readers will come to
‘know’ the key figures in really personal ways—readers share humor
and wit, puzzlement, adventure and grief alongside the women
themselves. In this regard, it is a very contemporary style of
scholarly history—and one that I hope will be modeled more in the
future.
*Louise Edwards, author of Women Warriors and Wartime Spies of
China*
Peace on Our Terms highlights the contributions that women from all
over the world made in 1919 to the history of peacemaking. Her
collage of activists—from France's Marguerite de Witt-Schlumberger
to China's Soumay Tcheng—is stunningly drawn. By investigating
women's activism on a global scale, Siegel has made an outstanding
contribution to our understanding of the post-World War I period. A
beautifully written, inspiring page-turner!
*Karen Offen, author of European Feminisms, 1700-1950: A
Political History*
As diplomats gathered in Paris in 1919 to negotiate the peace that
would end World War I, women around the world—in North America and
Europe but also in Egypt, China, and elsewhere—mobilized to make
their voices heard. Convinced that they had a role to play in
making the peace, they demanded disarmament, racial justice,
national sovereignty, international cooperation, and women’s
rights. This deeply researched and elegantly written book shows how
these women’s efforts, despite many disappointments, helped to
shape the new world order and the rise of global feminism.
*Erez Manela, author of The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination
and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism*
A riveting study...this sparkling, character-driven history will
captivate readers interested in the suffrage movement and feminist
history.
*Publishers Weekly*
Peace on Our Terms is a 'must read' for anyone interested in WPS,
women's peace history, feminist historical scholarship, or women
and social movements.
*International Feminist Journal of Politics*
Even specialists on women’s internationalism will discover new
insights in these pages...in taking seriously the microdiplomacy of
allied feminists with their Central Powers counterparts while
reconceptualizing the players and meaning of diplomacy, Siegel
illuminates powerful dreams and desires behind gender equity.
*Diplomatic History*
Argue[s] that the feminist campaigners of the interwar period set
the terms for future activism by insisting that the language of
human rights is inherently feminist.
*London Review of Books*
A very worthwhile addition to the literature on the international
women's movement, which also enhances understanding of postwar
international politics.
*Choice*
Offers an insightful and engaging combination of history and
biography that sheds new light on the history of the First World
War, the history of France and its relationship with the world, and
the transnational history of women and women’s movements.
*H-France Review*
Original and well-researched...makes significant contributions to
the history of women's involvement in transnational movements.
*Women and Social Movements*
This book would be appropriate for advanced World History courses,
Gender Studies, or even as a foil for post-World War One history
courses that are traditionally taught. The book is accessible for
community college undergraduates as well as graduate courses and
adds new global insights.
*Middle Ground Journal*
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