This edited volume addresses the degree to which a gendered perspective has penetrated the writing of modern German history during the last three decades. The introductory chapter by Karen Hagemann and Jean Quataert provides a thoughtful, enlightening comparison of “writing gender” into historical studies of the United States, on the one hand, and of modern Germany, on the other. They argue that, from “herstory” studies to later work on gender relations, the quantity and integration of gender studies have been greater in U.S. historiography. American scholars were, they add, also in the vanguard of investigating women's history and gender in the history of Germany, though German women academics have long since taken up the torch. The introduction includes an informative overview of the relative professional standing of female academics in history departments in the two countries. They cite structural, historical, and cultural factors as grounds for the greater resistance in the German academy to women as historians, on the one hand, and to gender history, on the other. In addressing the “Atlantic divide” (a phrase coined by Kathleen Canning), Quataert and Hagemann introduce a central theme of the volume.

Written by a major scholar in the field, each of the ten substantive chapters is devoted to an area of research: nation/national identity (Angelika Schaser); military/war (Karen Hagemann); colonialism/ethnicity (Birthe Kundrus); political activism (Belinda Davis); class/citizenship/welfare state (Kathleen Canning); National Socialism (Claudia Koonz); German-Jewish history (Benjamin Maria Baader); religion (Ann Taylor Allen); sexuality (Atina Grossmann); and the family (Robert G. Moeller). The range of topics is wide, though I missed a chapter on waged work and the professions. Canning considers theoretical debates around class and gender but her main focus is on citizenship and welfare. The only chapters that cross the 1945-divide are the ones by Davis, Grossmann, and, especially, Moeller.

Every chapter is of high quality, providing a thorough, balanced, and insightful survey of the literature on gender on the topic under consideration. When a topic has generated an extensive “non-gendered” literature, the chapter also offers a useful overview of that literature's arguments. Authors address the “gendering” of the historiography from two complementary angles: how much and what kind of research has appeared on women and gender relations? Has a gendered perspective shaped the big questions and interpretations in the “general” historiography? Authors consider similarities and differences in the topics, methods, and interpretations in the feminist scholarship produced on either side of the Atlantic. They discuss major debates that have engaged scholars of gender since the 1970s, such as arguments about the significance of maternalist currents in the women's movement or about the agency of women under National Socialism.

Authors express some criticisms of assumptions or lacunae in gender studies. Feminist historians of religion, Allen contends, have often accepted the conventional, incorrect hypothesis that secularization and modernization march in lock step. Grossmann, Allen, and Hagemann plea for more comparative research. As Grossmann concludes her chapter, “when it comes to sexuality, the gendering of German history will benefit from more ‘sex’ and less ‘German’” (p. 222). Moeller urges historians to turn their attention to the everyday history and internal life of the family.

Seven chapters cover historiographies that were not traditionally “gendered.” Their authors evaluate the degree to which gender has become a significant category of analysis in the field. They come to more or less sanguine conclusions. Histories written by Jewish scholars, Baader points out, have long paid attention to women's roles in the Jewish community. Hagemann, Canning, Koonz, and Allen see increasing interest in gender in the more recent historiography on their topics, though only Hagemann sees clear signs of a gendered perspective being mainstreamed. German scholars have, she notes, incorporated masculinity studies into interpretations of military and war. Kundrus and, especially, Schaser are less optimistic about the impact of a gendered approach on national and colonial historiographies, respectively. Schaser offers a sharp analysis of the ways in which power relations among German academic historians militate against receptivity to new topics and methods in the writing of national history.

Research on family, sexuality, and women's activism has always demonstrated awareness of the relationship between the sexes but “general” histories have typically marginalized these topics as trivial and/or ahistorical. The chapters by Grossmann, Davis, and Moeller concentrate, therefore, less on the gendering of their theme than on its (lack of) integration into mainstream accounts of the German past. Incorporating the history of sexuality, Grossman postulates, will change our understanding of the Weimar Republic and the immediate post-1945 period. Research on the family, Moeller argues, will revise interpretations of many “keywords” in German history, including the welfare state, nationalism, and citizenship.

Most authors view the “mainstreaming” question ambivalently. They hope gendered approaches will permeate the historiography, not just adorn it. Yet they do not want gender studies to succumb to the allure of the “master narrative” and “unitary history.” Canning and Schaser, in particular, express concern about fitting gendered analyses to conventional political accounts of citizenship or nationality. Schaser praises Karin Hausen's call for “the non-unity of history as a program” (p. 55).

This book will serve as a valuable resource for all historians of modern Germany and for historians who work on gender relations in other national or comparative contexts.