The women most crucial to the feminist movement that emerged in the 1960's arrived at their commitment and consciousness
in response to the unexpected and often shattering experience of having their work minimized, even disregarded,
by the men they considered to be their colleagues and fellow crusaders in the civil rights and radical New Left
movements. On the basis of years of research, interviews with dozens of the central figures, and her own personal
experience, Evans explores how the political stance of these women was catalyzed and shaped by their sharp disillusionment
at a time when their skills as political activists were newly and highly developed, enabling them to join forces
to support their own cause.
"The book's place among the histories of American women should be secure. By its very scholarship it accords
not only the women's movement but the movements from which it sprang a good measure of the historical dignity their
complexity deserves."
