Table of Contents

List of Illustrations List of Tables Acknowledgments Introducing Palace Women--Anne Walthall 1. Women and the Performance of Power in Early Modern Southeast Asia--Barbara Watson Andaya 2. Women in Classic Maya Royal Courts--Takeshi Inomata 3. Women and Power at the Byzantine Court--Kathryn M. Ringrose 4. Beyond Harem Walls: Ottoman Royal Women and the Exercise of Power--Leslie P. Peirce 5. Mughal Palace Women--Ruby Lal 6. Politics in an African Royal Harem: Women and Seclusion at the Royal Court of Benin, Nigeria--Flora Edouwaye S. Kaplan 7. Qing Imperial Women: Empresses, Concubines, and Aisin Gioro Daughters--Shuo Wang 8. The Royal Women of Ivan IV's Family and the Meaning of Forced Tonsure-- Isolde Thyret 9. Servants of the Inner Quarters: The Women of the Shogun's Great Interior--Hata Hisako 10. Women of Versailles, 1682-1789--Kathryn Norberg 11. Concubines and Cloth: Women and Weaving in Aztec Palaces and in Colonial Mexico--Susan Toby Evans 12. Women, Royalty, and Indigo Dyeing in Northern Nigeria, circa 1500-1807--Heidi J. Nast 13. Gender and Entertainment at the Song Court--Beverly Bossler 14. The Vanished Women of Korea: The Anonymity of Texts and the Historicity of Subjects--JaHyun Kim Haboush 15. The Perils of the Sentimental Family for Royalty in Postrevolutionary France: The Case of Queen Marie-Amelie--Jo Burr Margadant Bibliography Contributors Index

About the Author

Anne Walthall is Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine. She is author of Japan: A Cultural, Social, and Political History and The Weak Body of a Useless Woman: Matsuo Taseko and the Meiji Restoration, among other books.

Reviews

"This expansive collection... affords the first comprehensive review of the women who served in royal courts and palaces around the world, and thereby offers a welcome correction to our androcentric understanding of monarchies." The China Beat Blog "Excellent." -- M. E. Wiesner Choice