William H. Chafe is Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of History at Duke University. He is the author of Women and Equality: Changing Patterns in American Culture, A History of Our Time: Readings on Postwar America, The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War II, and Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina and the Black Struggle for Freedom.

"Provides a crisp overview of the present status of American women. This is the era that most texts are especially weak on, but students want to know about."--Anne M. Butler, Utah State University

"A very useful survey, which is especially strong in summarizing the literature of the past two decades."--David Stebenne, Ohio State University

"An excellent text exploring the boundaries of permissible/acceptable social change in America."--Richard K. Caputo, University of Pennsylvania

"Readable and thought-provoking....His revised work will undoubtedly, and deservedly, be read by a new generation of women's studies students."--Marilyn Yalom, Washington Post Book World

"A thoughtful re-evaluation of the same themes and issues first faced in the earlier study....[Offers] a very human conclusion to a synthesis of women's history in his century."--CHOICE

Praise for the First Edition: "Until Chafe's book, the period 1920-1970 has been a terra mythologica populated by stereotype and misremembrance....Chafe's thorough research now permits us to evaluate the changing contours of women's public roles in the twentieth century."--Virginia Quarterly Review

"An extraordinarily useful synthesis of material about the twentieth century woman."--Annals of the American Academy of Political Science

"A vast amount of carefully documented information in a readable form. Feminists will find evidence for their arguments in the study, students should be delighted with the generous and wide-ranging bibliography."--The Yale Review

"An excellent text, highly suitable for classroom use. It is scholarly and accessible."--Ronald A. Wells, Calvin College

"A coherent useful summary of twentieth century women's history valuable for supplement to text."--J. Horn, SUNY Brockport

"A good, concise look at American women in the twentieth century....A well-written book."--Dr. Robert W. Langran, Villanova University

"A useful extension of [Chafe's] own earlier work. Not only has he provided a distillation and synthesis of complexities of twenthieth century thought on woman's status; he has provided a compact, readable handbook for students and others seeking pathways through the mazes of the new scholarship in this field."--Frances Richardson Keller, San Francisco State University