P e r g a m o n

Women's Studies International Forum, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 209-213, 1998 Copyright © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in the USA. All rights reserved.

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BOOK REVIEWS

INTRODUCING WOMEN'S STUDIES (SECOND EDITION), edited by Victoria Robinson and Diane Richardson, 492 pages. Macmillan, London, 1997. Price not given.

The second edition of Introducing Women's Studies differs from the first in that it offers new material and to a certain extent a new perspective. As before, the volume is made up of especially written contributions from a number of authors who between them cover a considerable range of issues cen- tral to contemporary Women ' s Studies courses in higher ed- ucation. But it is not meant as a c r i t i c i sm- -and is very much more a comp l imen t - -when I say that the contributions made by the individual authors do not so much to introduce as to develop. Within this distinction lies, it seems to me, the real strength of this volume and indeed the real strength of Wom- en ' s Studies, namely that all the authors show what can be done in substantive areas when gender is made a central theme. All the essays thus avoid what could have been the perfectly respectable project of introducing the main themes o f - - l e t us s a y - - g e n d e r and literature, in favour of working through the radical implications of thinking about a text in terms of the ways in which it discusses relations between women and men. The essay by Gill Frith on Women, Writing and Language I found one of the most excit ing accounts of Jane Eyre that I have read for some time. The engagement with the text, and the richness and diversity of the critical literature introduced, i l luminated Jane Eyre in ways which were extremely rewarding. The essay covers a considerable range of material, and as such gives readers numerous ways of re-thinking Jane Eyre.

However, I confess to a fascination with Jane Eyre and Charlotte Bronte and thus it was inevitably the essay in this volume which I turned to first. This individual interest should not be interpreted as any slight on the other excellent essays, since in all the other cases I thought that the authors had new and interesting insights to offer in their chosen ar- eas and wrote with ease and clarity about them. Hence what I should like to identify as a further posit ive feature of this collection is both the sense of the vitality of the tradition of Women ' s Studies which is communicated and the ability of that tradition to extend established boundaries and conven- tions. The volume deserves praise in both a general and an individual sense, but any review would have to note that what is not done here is introduction in any straight forward sense. I make this point not as an adverse comment but as a guide to prospective readers. All the authors writ ing here are known and highly respected in their areas of expertise: what they are not doing is introducing Women ' s Studies so much as developing it and demonstrating that this relatively new way of looking at the world can also be a very powerful means of understanding it. I think it highly unlikely that any- one would want to call a collection of essays " A Demonstra-

tion of why Women ' s Studies has made (and can make) a Radical Contribution to the Conventional Academy" but that title would give readers a clearer idea of what they might expect from this excellent and stimulating collection. The editors acknowledge the help that they have received with the bibliography and as a reader I would like to endorse their congratulations to Joanne Crossland and Marg Waiters for their excellent work. All in all, the volume is a great tribute to the individuals writing in it and to contemporary Women ' s Studies.

MARY EVANS UNIVERSITY OF KENT AT CANTERBURY

UNITED KINGDOM

WOMEN IN A VIOLENT WORLD: FEMINIST ANALYSES AND RESISTANCE ACROSS EUROPE, edited by Chris Cor- rin. Edinburgh University Press, Scotland, 1997. ISBN 0 7486 0804 4. UK £14.95 paperback.

A considerable proportion of the recent literature on male violence against women has been produced in the USA. Women in a Violent World is welcome because it focuses on theory, policy and action in Europe, particularly within Central and Eastern Europe where there have been major upheavals which impact upon women ' s lives and the social, political and economic contexts are radically different to that of the USA. The book developed from a pan-European workshop on male sexual violence held in 1993. It fo- cuses broadly on feminist analyses and resistances to male sexual violence in Europe at local, national, international and global levels. It l inks together violence to women at home, at work or on the streets, with the more group- perpetrated crimes of racist and homophobic violence, and with warfare and violence at the national/international and global level. The content of the book is diverse and some- what loosely connected. Exploring the different cultural and political contexts which support male violence against women and girls across Europe is one clear theme in the book. Another points towards areas of ' 'unity in difference" and the growing internationalism and globalisation of femi- nist anti-violence strategies, especially around human rights abuses. The book shows clearly that feminism and feminist activism to combat male sexual violence is alive and thriv- ing in Europe.

Women in a Violent World is organized into three sec- tions. The first section brings together the experiences which feminists in Russia, Hungary and Ireland have when "nam- ing" male sexual violence at the household or local level. Section Two considers male violence where women from

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