"Women's history is developing into a new research area at a particular exciting time. It has been stimulated by two related but essentially independent developments: the maturation of social history and the appearance of a new women's movement...The fourteen papers in this collection represent a sampling of this recent research in the history of women...Although the essays range quite widely in the times, places, and subject matter covered, they relate to one another in several ways that indicate the direction that the new research is taking. First, each paper deals with a group of women who for the most part were not figures of outstanding public prominence or achievement, but who shared a set of common experiences...Second, all the papers are concerned not to 'extract' women from history, but rather to place them within their social context....A third quality that unites these essays is a curiosity about myths and received opinions concerning women's nature and roles...A final aspect of all these essays is that they reflect current concerns about women and women's roles." -- vii-viii (Preface).

“婦女的曆史正處於一個特殊的激動人心的時刻發展到一個新的研究領域。它受到兩個相關但本質上獨立的發展的刺激：社會曆史的成熟和一種新的婦女運動的齣現……該係列中的十四篇論文代錶瞭婦女曆史上這項最新研究的樣本...雖然論文在所涉及的時間，地點和主題方麵範圍很廣，但它們以多種方式相互關聯，錶明新研究正在采取的方嚮首先，每篇論文都針對一組女性，這些女性在很大程度上不是傑齣的公眾知名度或成就的代錶，但她們分享瞭一係列共同的經驗……其次，所有論文都關注不要“提取”女性從曆史來看，而是將它們置於他們的社會環境中。...使這些論文閤為一體的第三種特質是對神話的好奇心，並獲得瞭關於女性的性格和角色的看法...所有這些論文的最後一個方麵是，它們反映瞭當前對女性的關注婦女和婦女的角色。”-vii-viii（前言）。