Book Cover
E-book
Author Eller, Cynthia

Title Gentlemen and Amazons : the Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory, 1861-1900
Published Berkeley : University of California Press, 2011

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Description 1 online resource (291 pages)
Contents Cover; Gentlemen and Amazons; Title; Copyright; For Teresa M. Shaw, my favorite historian; CONTENTS; ILLUSTRATIONS; ACKNOWLEDGMENTS; 1 The Travels and Travails of Matriarchal Myth; THE "MYTH" IN MATRIARCHAL MYTH; 2 Amazons Everywhere: Matriarchal Myth before Bachofen; THE ENDURING APPEAL OF THE AMAZON; EARLY ETHNOGRAPHY; DEVELOPING AN EVOLUTIONARY TIME LINE; MATRIARCHY AND THE SOCIALIST IMAGINATION; INFLUENCES ON BACHOFEN; 3 On the Launching Pad: J.J. Bachofen and 'Das Mutterrecht'; JOHANN JAKOB BACHOFEN, 1815-1878; THE CHRONOLOGY OF HUMAN HISTORY IN BACHOFEN'S DAS MUTTERRECHT
BACHOFEN AND THE INTERPRETATION OF MYTHPROGRESS AND NOSTALGIA: BACHOFEN ON WOMEN, RELIGION, HISTORY, AND GOVERNMENT; BACHOFEN'S LEGACY; 4 The Matriarchal Explosion: Anthropology Finds Mother Right (and Itself); HENRY SUMNER MAINE'S PATRIARCHAL THEORY; JOHN FERGUSON McLENNAN: THEORIST OF MARRIAGE AND CONNOISSEUR OF THE BIZARRE; MOVING BEYOND McLENNAN: SIR JOHN LUBBOCK'S MATRIARCHAL MYTH; SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST: HERBERT SPENCER CHAMPIONS PATRIARCHY; REPORTING FROM THE FIELD:LEWIS HENRY MORGAN; WILLIAM ROBERTSON SMITH AND THE ARABIAN CASE; E.B. TYLOR AND THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SEAL OF APPROVAL
5 Making Matriarchal Myth Work:Communists and Feminists Discover the Mother AgeFRIEDRICH ENGELS AND THE ORIGIN OF THE FAMILY, PRIVATE PROPERTY, AND THE STATE; THE FIRST CHAPTER OF AUGUST BEBEL'S WOMAN AND SOCIALISM; FEMINISTS ON THE FIRST WAVE; 6 Mother Right on the Continent; ETHNOLOGY IN GERMANY; THE GERMAN SYNTHESIS: JULIUS LIPPERT'S VERSION OF MATRIARCHAL MYTH; SEX, MARRIAGE, AND DARWIN; PROPERTY AND LAW, WOMEN AND MEN; MOTHER R IGHT AND THE ETERNAL FEMININE; THE ARYAN MOTHER; LATE ENTRANTS TO THE MATRIARCHAL DEBATE; 7 Struggling to Stay Alive: Anthropology and Matriarchal Myth
THE SOCIALIST DEFECTION FROM MATRIARCHAL MYTHTHE MARGINALIZATION OF MATRIARCHAL MYTH IN ANTHROPOLOGY; FIELDWORK AS THE NEW ANTHROPOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE; THE IMPACT OF NEW ETHNOGRAPHY ON MATRIARCHAL MYTH; 8 Matriarchal Myth in the Late Nineteenth Century: Why Then? Why Not Before?; PRECONDITIONS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF MATRIARCHAL MYTH; THE PATRIARCHAL FAMILY IN TROUBLE; NOTES; Bibliography; Index
Summary Gentlemen and Amazons traces the nineteenth-century genesis and development of an important contemporary myth about human origins: that of an original prehistoric matriarchy. Cynthia Eller explores the intellectual history of the myth, which arose from male scholars who mostly wanted to vindicate the patriarchal family model as a higher stage of human development. Eller tells the stories these men told, analyzes the gendered assumptions they made, and provides the necessary context for understanding how feminists of the 1970s and 1980s embraced as historical "fact" a discredited nineteenth-century idea
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes English
Print version record
SUBJECT Amazone gnd
Subject Women, Prehistoric.
Religion, Prehistoric.
Matriarchy.
Matrilineal kinship.
Patriarchy.
Feminist theory.
FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS -- Alternative Family.
FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS -- Reference.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Folklore & Mythology.
Feminist theory
Matriarchy
Matrilineal kinship
Patriarchy
Religion, Prehistoric
Women, Prehistoric
Matriarchat
Mythos
Urgesellschaft
Anthropology.
Social Sciences.
Prehistoric Anthropology.
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2010038919
ISBN 9780520948556
0520948556
1283291819
9781283291811
0520248597
9780520248595
0520266765
9780520266766
9786613291813
6613291811