The first volume of theNew York Timesbestselling author's monumental and unprecedented history: "Consistently thought-provoking" (The New York Review of Books).

, Marilyn French spent over fifteen years with a team of researchers and prominent historians examining women's lives and activities in civilizations and societies spanning the ages.

moves on to examine women's lives in ancient Egypt, China, India, Peru, Mexico, Greece, and Rome. In her reconstruction of wars, laws, and other activities affecting both women and men, French also traces the worldviews underpinning them. She also depicts how women's relationship to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam changed for good and bad over the centuries.

Publishers Weekly