Review by Choice Review
The Boston Women's Health Book Collective wrote, in the first edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves (1973; 2nd ed., CH, Jul'77; 35th anniversary edition, 2005) that "learning about our womanhood from the inside out has allowed us to cross over the socially created barriers of race, color, income, and class, and to feel a sense of identity with all women in the experience of being female." This claim was supported and promoted by the second wave of feminism during the 1970s-80s. In Bodies of Knowledge, Kline (history, Univ. of Cincinnati) describes the ways in which women challenged, expanded, and reinvented constructions of the female body during the second wave. Through five chapters, Kline describes the ideas, expectations, and pitfalls encountered by advocates of women's health during the second wave. She acknowledges the work of medical historians Charlotte Borst, Judy Leavitt, Naomi Rogers, and Janet Golden as pivotal in establishing the historical framework to study women's health. Kline's work builds on these frameworks and is part of a new trend in historical scholarship that investigates women's health, American culture, and medicine in its approach to understanding the late 20th century. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-level undergraduates through faculty/researchers. M. L. Charleroy University of Minnesota
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
