Until now the advent of Western romantic love has been seen as a liberation from—or antidote to—ten centuries of misogyny. In this major contribution to gender studies, R. Howard Bloch demonstrates how similar the ubiquitous antifeminism of medieval times and the romantic idealization of woman actually are.

Through analyses of a broad range of patristic and medieval texts, Bloch explores the Christian construction of gender in which the flesh is feminized, the feminine is aestheticized, and aesthetics are condemned in theological terms. Tracing the underlying theme of virginity from the Church Fathers to the courtly poets, Bloch establishes the continuity between early Christian antifeminism and the idealization of woman that emerged in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In conclusion he explains the likely social, economic, and legal causes for the seeming inversion of the terms of misogyny into those of an idealizing tradition of love that exists alongside its earlier avatar until the current era.

This startling study will be of great value to students of medieval literature as well as to historians of culture and gender.

Hardly a week passes without some high-profile court case that features intellectual property at its center. But how did the belief that one could own an idea come about? And how did that belief change the way humankind lives and works?

William Rosen, author of Justinian's Flea, seeks to answer these questions and more with The Most Powerful Idea in the World. A lively and passionate study of the engineering and scientific breakthroughs that led to the steam engine, this book argues that the very notion of intellectual property drove not only the invention of the steam engine but also the entire Industrial Revolution: history’s first sustained era of economic improvement. To do so, Rosen conjures up an eccentric cast of characters, including the legal philosophers who enabled most the inventive society in millennia, and the scientists and inventors—Thomas Newcomen, Robert Boyle, and James Watt—who helped to create and perfect the steam engine over the centuries. With wit and wide-ranging curiosity, Rosen explores the power of creativity, capital, and collaboration in the brilliant engineering of the steam engine and how this power source, which fueled factories, ships, and railroads, changed human history.   

Deeply informative and never dull, Rosen's account of one of the most important inventions made by humans is a rollicking ride through history, with careful scholarship and fast-paced prose in equal measure.

The first in-depth look at culture produced by women in Fascist Italy.

Mothers of Invention was first published in 1995. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

To Mussolini, she was either donna-madre, the lauded domestic model, or donna-crisi, intellectual, masculine, a degenerate type. But woman, as Mothers of Invention shows, was not a category so easily defined or contained by the Italian Fascist state. This volume is the first thorough investigation of culture produced by Italian women during Fascism (1922-1943).In literature, painting, sculpture, film, and fashion, the contributors explore the politics of invention articulated by these women as they negotiated prevailing ideologies. Essays on women’s film spectatorship, on Anna Kuliscioff as the leading feminist in the Socialist party, on Teresa Labriola’s concept of Fascist feminism, on futurism and on Irene Brin’s reportage on female fashion and self-invention examine women in mass culture, political thought, and daily living. Contributors: Rosalia Colombo Ascari, Sweet Briar College; Fiora A. Bassanese, U of Massachusetts, Boston; Maurizia Boscagli, U of California, Santa Barbara; Emily Braun, Hunter College, CUNY; Carole C. Gallucci; Mariolina Graziosi, U of Milan; Clara Orban, Depaul U; Lucia Re, UCLA; Jacqueline Reich, Trinity College; and Barbara Spackman, New York University.