Description: Offers a fresh perspective on Meiji Japan with a spotlight on women's activities in the new public spaces of the era
Review Quotes: "In this clear and wonderfully informative study, Mara Patessio steps beyond the more traditional focus on 'great lives' or 'important movements' to explore the complicated social networks that drew Meiji women together across boundaries of class and region earlier imagined as impermeable. While offering affecting portraits of notable female educators, students, writers, and activists, Patessio suggests that a host of other voices, until now largely forgotten, was every bit as significant in contributing to the emerging nation and fomenting the feminist movement in Japan."--Rebecca Copeland, Washington University in St. Louis