Divided We Stand

January 1, 2017

To celebrate the seminal 1977 Houston National Women's Conference (NWC) 40th anniversary, Spruill (history, Univ. of South Carolina) covers decades of the fight for women's rights and the current resulting political polarization. In the 1970s, the need for increased rights rose to the forefront of political and societal consciousness, but it also splintered liberals and conservatives over intrinsic beliefs about women's familial role. According to Spruill, the positive changes peaked at the NWC, and then regressed, causing increased strife in the present day. She specializes in documenting the pivotal role women played during key moments in American history, and her analysis of the NWC is a much-needed update to Alice S. Rossi's Feminists in Politics: A Panel Analysis of the First National Women's Conference. However, without the results of the 2016 presidential race, her thesis on the gradual diminishment of hard-won rights lacks punch. Additionally, the density of information, both biographical and political, all but guarantees the book's relegation to researchers and students, for which it is a seminal work. Index not seen. VERDICT An authoritative history of the women's rights movement across decades arriving at its current incarnation.--Jessica Bushore, Xenia, OH

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