Women's transnational activism is increasingly well documented historically, most notably that of Anglophone women. Karen Garner's Shaping a global women's agenda joins this literature, showing American and British women lobbying for world peace from the interwar period down through the years following the Second World War, and generally promoting international recognition of women's value and rights. Although pushing for the development of conflict resolution mechanisms before 1914, the cast of characters in Garner's study began coordinated transnational lobbying during and after the so-called Great War. In large part, the new League of Nations gave them a platform – one that they assiduously sought to occupy. Under the leadership demanded by British and American women, the various transnational committees that they formed attended meetings of the League in Geneva, issued reports, and initiated petitions on behalf of peace and disarmament signed by hundreds of thousands of concerned citizens.

Peace activists played on men's convictions that women were essentially maternal and thus demanded a place on the international stage. One activist remarked in a 1919 book that ‘World peace is equally women's work’ (p. 25). The idea held by many of the women as well as men was that, whereas men were driven by their interests, women, because of their motherhood, were driven by their concern for humanity as a whole. Although some in the many transnational committees lobbied for women's rights, many activists were not so sure that this was the best route for women. As the 1930s advanced, some of these activists mobilized against fascism, sometimes focusing on the promotion of an aggressive masculinity in their critiques.

The book then details the refugee work of Anglophone women in Europe during the Second World War and their involvement in the reconstitution of Japanese politics after the war. Throughout the interwar and war years, many opposed equal rights activism – especially in the form of advocacy for equal rights treaties – because it would nullify protective labour legislation. Much of that changed with the founding of the United Nations, as women from organizations around the world took strong stands on behalf of human rights and especially for commissions to promote the status of women officially within the United Nations. The YWCA, Garner's main interest in this book, removed itself from these efforts to concentrate on promoting its own leadership around the world.

The last third of the book covers the United Nations declaration of the Year of the Woman and the work of NGOs in making the 1975 meeting in Mexico City a success. At this point, Garner brings in the participation of women from around the world as an influence on the meeting. She emphasizes, however, the continuing leadership of YWCA and other American women, who schooled these relatively inexperienced women in how to be effective. This interpretation is part of an overall thread in the book: at first the absence of non-Western activists in the 1920s and 1930s, then a secondary role for them in the UN Commission on the Status of Women, and finally an appearance in the 1970s and thereafter, albeit of politically backward actors. The extensive coverage of equal rights and disarmament organizing and of subsequent work by British and American women makes it apparent to scholars in world history that this book, while excellent in what it does, has a limited view of what constitutes women's activism in the realm of world governance. Simultaneously to the story of Anglo-American activists, a variety of women's groups from non-Western countries were petitioning the League against the mandate system and organizing themselves regionally and globally in the run-up to decolonization. Although the author cites the cooperation of women from more than fifty countries around disarmament issues in the interwar years, women from beyond the West are never named. In other words, the lack of non-Western voices becomes clear for those cognizant of the escalating and vast decolonization efforts in the interwar period and thereafter, many of them employing women's efforts. In the face of the activism of many non-Western women to eliminate colonialism as a form of world governance, one is curious why these efforts are not covered in Garner's book. Moreover, even women from places where there was no overt colonialism, such as in Latin America, were at the forefront of efforts to make the United Nations more responsive to women's rights and to their protection. Although some of these are mentioned, we have few entries for them in the index nor any of the fascinating biographical coverage provided for the Americans and British.

Finally, non-Western women worked in Western NGOs such as the YWCA and were partners in efforts in India and elsewhere. They contested the policies, values, and domineering attitudes of Western activists. Whereas Garner makes a detailed exploration of differences among US and British women when it comes to policy and appointments to leadership positions, there is no mention of the kind of pushback to Western women in the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and other organizations from non-Western and non-Anglophone women that is described in the work of Mary Hawkesworth and other scholars. While many Western leaders promoted equal rights, other women outside the West did not accept such a platform, saying that they did not want equality with their oppressed and subjugated men folk. Goals clashed and differences abounded. More than that, there is ample testimony that at international meetings Western women were shocked at the honed political skills and solidarity displayed by non-Western delegations. Some of these histories, woven into Garner's story, would have given this book a more nuanced, fuller picture of NGO activism on global issues.

All this said, mini-biographies of interesting American and British characters – such as the American activist for disarmament in the 1920s and 1930s Laura Puffer Morgan, who learned about weaponry and military budgets – help make this an important work. Morgan disliked women's sentimentalism when it came to war and herself preferred facts and information. Both pro- and anti-war politicians admired her, and general staffs were said to read her reports on weapons and military spending. Other characters described by Garner toward the end of her story include Mildred Persinger and Elizabeth Palmer, whom she credits with supposedly making non-Western activists acceptable and effective. These tantalizing few sentences about individual Western activists suggest an unexplored world waiting for scholars in women's history, especially the great potential for more studies to create the truly global history of individuals and projects that women's activism deserves.