Review: How the West was won — and lost — by women: A new history revises the record of the United States
A new history of American women by Ann Beattie, who has written or edited six history books and numerous magazine articles, is a reminder of why we need to think critically about the role of women in our culture. It shows how we have taken over from women in our thinking about the West.
Ann Beattie’s new book, A New History of the West, is a brilliant and important book that reminds us that women have been at the center of our country’s history. This is a book that shows how women, at their best, are just as capable as men of doing great things, and what a shame that we continue to marginalize them. It is an excellent overview of the West’s history, and a must-read for those interested in the role of women in all of our country’s history.
The West — the U.S. and Canada in particular — has always been and always will be a place where individual, free-thinking people can do great things because they are not afraid to question the ideas and dogma that the rest of the world is taught. That is why the West is the greatest success story of the world. It is a place where the will of individual freedom is not always in conflict with the will of institutional power.
Ann Beattie’s new history of American women is not only a history book. She is also a very important contribution to the American culture of history — an important reminder of how women have been at the center of our history. It reveals that we have taken over from women in our thinking about the West — and that our ideas about the West are far off the mark.
We in the West have always believed in the power of free thought, of individual liberty, of freedom from arbitrary authority and of respect for individual rights to think and to be who we want to be. We have always believed in a free America — not a free-market society based on the “free-ride”