Myths of Motherhood: How Culture Reinvents the Good Mother

Being a woman against political correctness also does not make me a big fan of many feministic studies, so I was a bit relunctant to pick up this book at my college bookstore. The Myths of Motherhood is a fascinating read and not written by the usual feminist fare of male-hating/bashing writers. Shari L. Thurer is a mother herself and she writes with confident prose of the "maternal" perception throughout areas of history. Even with convincing speculation on what may have gone on through the minds of women in their respective eras. This book is an excellent reference on several levels and will lead one to re-evaluate just how much society's changes have affected what we *think* is a proper "mother".

I found this book to be a fascinating, couldn't-put-it-down retrospective of motherhood seen in a historical and cultural perspective. Not only was the subject matter interesting, but it was written in a fresh and accessible manner for the non-historian.