Surmounting the Barricades: Women in the Paris Commune

by Carolyn J. Eichner

This book vividly evokes radical women’s integral roles within France’s revolutionary civil war known as the Paris Commune. It demonstrates the breadth, depth, and impact of communard feminist socialisms far beyond the 1871 insurrection. Examining the period from the early 1860s through that century’s end, Carolyn J. Eichner investigates how radical women developed critiques of gender, class, and religious hierarchies in the immediate pre-Commune era, how these ideologies emerged as a plurality of feminist socialisms within the revolution, and how these varied politics subsequently affected fin-de-siècle gender and class relations. She focuses on three distinctly dissimilar revolutionary women leaders who exemplify multiple competing and complementary feminist Andre Leo, Elisabeth Dmitrieff, and Paule Mink. Leo theorized and educated through journalism and fiction, Dmitrieff organized institutional power for working-class women, and Mink agitated crowds to create an egalitarian socialist world. Each woman forged her own path to gender equality and social justice.

Genres: History, France, Feminism, Nonfiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Carolyn J. Eichner teaches in the Departments of History and Women’s & Gender Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Her books include Surmounting the Barricades: Women in the Paris Commune and Feminism’s Empire.

Reviews

[Antje Schrupp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Einige interessante Informationen, aber keine wirkliche These und die Ideen der Frauen fast gar nicht in die zeitgenössische Debatte eingeordnet. Manche Schlussfolgerungen fand ich auch nicht so überzeugend.

[John Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

The commune is described as a means of furthering the discussion, organizing, and acceptance of women’s equality in France and globally.