Election 2008 made American history, but it was also the product of American history. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Sarah Palin smashed through some of the most enduring barriers to high political office, but their exceptional candidacies did not come out of nowhere. In these timely and accessible essays, a distinguished group of historians explores how the candidates both challenged and reinforced historic stereotypes of race and sex while echoing familiar themes in American politics and exploiting new digital technologies.

Contributors include Kathryn Kish Sklar on Clinton’s gender masquerade; Tiffany Ruby Patterson on the politics of black anger; Mitch Kachun on Michelle Obama and stereotypes about black women’s bodies; Glenda E. Gilmore on black women’s century of effort to expand political opportunities for African Americans; Tera W. Hunter on the lost legacy of Shirley Chisholm; Susan M. Hartmann on why the U.S. has not yet followed western democracies in electing a female head of state; Melanie Gustafson on Palin and the political traditions of the American West; Ronald Formisano on the populist resurgence in 2008; Paula Baker on how digital technologies threaten the secret ballot; Catherine E. Rymph on Palin’s distinctive brand of political feminism; and Elisabeth I. Perry on the new look of American leadership.

Susan Zimmermann talked with forty women about perhaps one of the most sensitive issues of body image and health - their breasts, the chief attribute of femininity. In the aftermath of the early 1990s controversy over the use of silicone breast implants, how do women decide to undergo surgery o enhance or reconstruct their bodies? How does surgery alter a woman's self-image? How did they face the possibility of debilitating autoimmune disease from rupturing or leaking implants?

Some opted for breast implants after mastectomies, others for cosmetic reasons. Some felt empowered by the surgery: "Being a woman, I just like breasts and felt like I got ripped off. ... I did it for myself." Others were pressured by their husbands: "He used to make fun of parts of my body. .... And, he made me believe that if I was ever to leave him, no one would have anything to do with me because I was this deformed type of person."

After surgery, some women were ecstatic, while others had a sense of inner conflict about what they had done to themselves: were they "faking it"? And a few were angry: "I was really angry inside that I had  had to put plastic bags filled with chemicals in my body in order for me to feel like I could do the Hoochie Koo on Saturday nights. ... I didn't wear tight clothes; I didn't want my children to find out."

Now, having faced years of medical and personal uncertainty, many have coped by reassessing their lives and their relationships, by sharing information and support with other women with implants, outreach that became a means for self-empowerment.

In Volume 2 of Women's History in Global Perspective, Bonnie G. Smith curates more essays by pioneering thinkers on issues that have shaped the history of women, this time with a focus on particular places and particular eras. The collection examines women from prehistory to ancient civilizations in Egypt, Israel, India, and beyond; a survey of women history in China, Japan, and Korea; women and gender in South and South East Asia; medieval women; women and gender in Colonial Latin America; and the history of women in the United States to 1865. 

Inclusive and wide-ranging, Women's History in Global Perspective, Volume 2, offers an invaluable collection of feminist scholarship on overlooked and marginalized topics. 

Contributors: Judith M. Bennett, Kathleen Brown, Brady Hughes, Sarah Shaver Hughes, Susan Mann, Barbara N. Ramusack, and Ann Twinam.