Ebook: Sex and Power in History: How the Difference Between the Sexes Has Shaped Our Destinies

“What is male, what is female, how should they relate?”

To answer these great basic questions, so perplexing and controversial today, a wise and sympathetic Frenchman traces the changing historic roles of women, especially Western women. He reaches back to remote sources to explain—and suggest solutions to—the current predicament of the sexes.

When some three of four thousand years ago men revolted against the myth of the Great Earth Goddess and set up dominant male gods, it was a psychological event of the first magnitude. This shift to the masculine principle, claims de Riencourt, marked the beginning of history proper and led to the male-oriented societies of Greece and Rome. In Rome it also led to the first full-scale rebellion of women, so similar to what’s happening today.

From Rome’s fall, de Riencourt follows the fortunes of women from tribal and feudal to Renaissance and industrial socities and makes some startling predictions about the direction of Western human ecology.

Sex and Power in History is a bold and brilliant synthesis of many disciplines, including sociology, biology, psychology, and religion. It discusses: The powerful women of history and the cultures that nourished them ... why men and women don’t think alike ... how women were vital to the spread of Christianity ... the most creative social experiment of our century that truly liberates women... the relationship between stable family life and the power of women ... why Oriental cultures accommodate men and women better than the West... the Reformation and the degradation of women ... how women fare under modem socialism ... the link between widespread male homosexuality and the social repression of women ... the dangerous implications of the current blurring of sexual differences ... and much, much more, as he analyzes the nature of men and women and the myths and misconceptions that separate or unite them.