Strength in Unity

Kara A. Peruccio is Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Program in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Maine.

"In this brilliant and luminous book, Kara A. Perruccio maps the European contours of the early twentieth century suffragette movement. Her brilliant close readings of congress sessions and union gatherings chart new territory, revealing how -despite the looming shadow of dictatorship -continental feminism developed into a transnational movement that shone against the dark."-- "Diana Garvin, author of Feeding Fascism: The Politics of Women's Food Work" "Strength in Unity innovatively examines the growth of the international women's suffrage movement during the interwar period, shedding new light not only on their transnational projects, but also on their complex internal politics. Using an exceptional range and depth of sources in five languages, this book focuses on engagements between the Northern European and US-based International Woman Suffrage Alliance and four Mediterranean national women's suffrage organizations. Peruccio develops a powerful Mediterranean framework that reveals elitist and colonial inequities between the Protestant-dominated Alliance countries and the Othered primarily Catholic and Muslim Mediterranean nations."-- "Carolyn J. Eichner, author of Feminism's Empire" "Strength in Unity is a model of transnational history. Peruccio breaks new ground in exploring suffrage associations throughout the Mediterranean. She pulls no punches in documenting not only the discrimination these activist women faced within the international women's movement but also their compromises with authoritarian regimes."-- "Melissa R. Klapper, author of Jewish Women at Home in the World: Gender, Judaism, and American Identity in the Rise of Mass Tourism"