As Claude Levi-Strauss wrote in his book, La pensee sauvage (Paris,1960): biographical and anecdotal history a is low-powered history, which is not intelligible in itself, and only becomes so when it is transferred en bloc to a form of history of a higher power than itself a The historian's relative choice a is always confined to the choice between history which teaches more and explains less and history which explains more and teaches less. This book oscillates between analysis, which tries to explain what man is, and anecdote, which tries to teach what he is capable of becoming. What better approach to understanding patriarchy, beyond learning the formal dictionary definitions of this term, than by examining the richly diverse descriptions of gender relationships found in the following chapters? It is the hope of these authors that the recognition of national differences and gender differences will provide new vantage points from which we may gain wider perspectives on our own prejudices and thereby find fulfillment of our aspirations to become more fully human.
About the Author: Francis Feeley is a member of the faculty at The University of Grenoble3 where he has taught American Studies since 2000. He is also Director of the Center for the Advanced Study of American Institutions and Social Movements [CEIMSA], the web site of which is temporarily located on The University of California-San Diego server: http: //dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/. Professor Feeley has taught European and U.S. History for over 30 years at institutions of higher education in the United States, France, and the in Former Soviet Union, where he taught as a Fulbright Scholar in 1993-94. He has published ten books and more than two dozen articles on European and American social history. He is a member of the of the professional association, Historians Against War, as well as the Association Francaise d'Etudes Americaines, and the Societe des Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Superieur. He is presently member of the research laboratory, CREA located at the Universite de Paris Ouest-Nanterre, where he is directing the theses of eleven Ph.D. students in American Studies. Professor Feeley has served on the Board of Directors of the International Endowment for Democracy [http: //www.iefd.org] in New York City since its inception in 2005