Servants of the Dynasty Palace Women in World History [Paperback]

Mothers, wives, concubines, entertainers, attendants, officials, maids, drudges. By offering the first comparative view of the women who lived, worked, and served in royal courts around the globe, this work opens a new perspective on the monarchies that have dominated much of human history. Written by leading historians, anthropologists, and archeologists, these lively essays take us from Mayan states to twentieth-century Benin in Nigeria, to the palace of Japanese Shoguns, the Chinese Imperial courts, eighteenth-century Versailles, Mughal India, and beyond. Together they investigate how women's roles differed, how their roles changed over time, and how their histories can illuminate the structures of power and societies in which they lived. This work also furthers our understanding of how royal courts, created to project the authority of male rulers, maintained themselves through the reproductive and productive powers of women.

Anne Walthallis Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine. She is author ofJapan: A Cultural, Social, and Political HistoryandThe Weak Body of a Useless Woman: Matsuo Taseko and the Meiji Restoration,among other books.

List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Acknowledgments

Introducing Palace WomenAnne Walthall
1. Women and the Performance of Power in
Early Modern Southeast AsiaBarbara Watson Andaya
2. Women in Classic Maya Royal CourtsTakeshi Inomata
3. Women and Power at the Byzantine CourtKathryn M. Ringrose
4. Beyond Harem Walls: Ottoman Royal Women and the Exercise of PowerLeslie P. Peirce
5. Mughal Palace WomenRuby Lal
6. Politics in an African Royal Harem: Women and Seclusion at the Royal Court of Benin, NigeriaFlora Edouwaye S. Kaplan
7. Qing Imperial Women: Empresses, Concubines, and Aisin Gioro DaughtersShuo Wang
8. The Royal Women of Ivan IV's Family and the Meaning of Forced Tonsure
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