... engaging, relevant and sweeping.

The book focuses most on white and Black women, with nods to Latinx, Asian, Indigenous, and queer women, too. It spotlights a long list of prominent, groundbreaking, and morally complex women.

... dives into the tangle of personalities, politics, and passions and surfaces with a great narrative. The author presents both the inspiring and ugly sides of the struggle for equality, including suffragettes who used racism to promote their cause, some in-fighting, and many disagreements on strategies.

... engrossing, extremely detailed.

A confession: A few pages into historian Elisabeth Griffith’s book, I felt the weariness of a lifelong feminist. Who needs to read this encyclopedic account of the last 100 years of women’s fight for equality? By the time I finished the introduction, my mood had shifted. Who needs this steamroller of a timeline full of pluckable facts and anecdotes about what women have endured in America? Far too many of us, I’m afraid. Including me.

The slow pace of women’s progress comes across viscerally in this meticulous, well-sourced volume, which at times feels like one very, very long lecture in an Introduction to Women’s Studies class.

Noting that women’s achievements have been both hard-won and fragile, Griffith laments how racial, class, and political divisions have slowed the path to equality, but strikes an appealing note of optimism in the book’s final pages. This is an impassioned and inspiring introduction to how far the women’s movement has come, and where it still needs to go..

A hefty, thoroughly researched contribution to women’s history..