Servants of the dynasty : palace women in world history / edited by Anne Walthall.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Walthall, Anne.

Series:

California world history library ; 7.

The California world history library ; 7

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Courtesans--History.

Courtesans.

Courts and courtiers--History.

Courts and courtiers.

Ladies-in-waiting--History.

Ladies-in-waiting.

Favorites, Royal--History.

Favorites, Royal.

Harems--History.

Harems.

History.

Physical Description:

xi, 381 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, [2008]

Summary:

By offering the first comparative view of the women who lived, worked, and served in royal courts around the globe-mothers, wives, concubines, entertainers, attendants, officials, maids, and drudges-Servants of the Dynasty opens a new perspective on the monarchies that have dominated much of human history. Written by leading historians, anthropologists, and archeologists, these lively essays take us from Classic Mayan states to the palace of the Japanese Shoguns, to the Chinese imperial courts, to eighteenth-century Versailles, to Mughal India, to twentieth-century Benin in Nigeria, and beyond. Together, they investigate women's roles in each era and locale, how those roles changed over time, and what women's histories say about the structures of power and societies in which they lived. This work furthers our understanding of how royal courts, created to project the authority of male rulers, maintained themselves through the reproductive and productive powers of women.

Contents:

Women and the performance of power in early modern Southeast Asia / Barbara Watson Andaya

Women in classic Maya royal courts / Takeshi Inomata

Women and power at the Byzantine court / Kathryn M. Ringrose

Beyond harem walls : Ottoman royal women and the exercise of power / Leslie P. Peirce

Mughal palace women / Ruby Lal

Politics in an African royal harem : women and seclusion at the royal court of Benin, Nigeria / Flora Edouwaye S. Kaplan

Qing imperial women : empresses, concubines, and Aisin Gioro daughters / Shuo Wang

Royal women of Ivan IV's family and the meaning of forced tonsure / Isolde Thyrêt

Servants of the inner quarters : the women of the Shogun's Great Interior / Hata Hisako

Women of Versailles, 1682-1789 / Kathryn Norberg

Concubines and cloth : women and weaving in Aztec palaces and colonial Mexico / Susan Toby Evans

Women, royalty, and indigo dyeing in Northern Nigeria, circa 1500-1807 / Heidi J. Nast

Gender and entertainment at the Song court / Beverly Bossler

Vanished women of Korea : the anonymity of texts and the historicity of subjects / JaHyun Kim Haboush

Perils of the sentimental family for royalty in postrevolutionary France : the case of Queen Marie-Amélie / Jo Burr Margadant.

Notes:

"An Ahmanson Foundation book in the humanities"--P. [4] of cover.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 327-358) and index.

ISBN:

9780520254435

0520254430

9780520254442

0520254449

OCLC:

178270713