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The Future That Was - by Durba Mitra (Hardcover)

The Future That Was - by  Durba Mitra (Hardcover) - 1 of 1
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Highlights

  • How Third World women seized the means of knowledge production to fight against rising authoritarianism and imagine a future freer than our present Beginning in the 1970s, women of the decolonizing world offered new visions of liberation that centered the ideas and lives of women.
  • About the Author: Durba Mitra is the Richard B. Wolf Associate Professor in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard University.
  • 336 Pages
  • Political Science, Colonialism & Post-Colonialism

Description



Book Synopsis



How Third World women seized the means of knowledge production to fight against rising authoritarianism and imagine a future freer than our present

Beginning in the 1970s, women of the decolonizing world offered new visions of liberation that centered the ideas and lives of women. Galvanized by International Women's Year in 1975 and the UN's Decade of Women, Third World women developed novel ideas of equality and self-determination, building a new internationalism in opposition to neocolonialism and postcolonial authoritarianism. In The Future That Was, feminist historian Durba Mitra offers a pathbreaking account of how these women wrote Third World feminism into being, catalyzing a momentous expansion of knowledge about women, gender, and sexuality that transformed emancipatory politics across the globe.

Mitra shows how women from former colonies in South Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and beyond envisioned a radically just world--and did so by insisting that research on the world's women lay at the heart of debates about global inequality, development, and human rights. Women gathered at international conferences, wrote reports on the dangers facing women, and took to the streets in protest, building a world of knowledge that contested the devastating effects of patriarchy and colonialism. Yet, despite hundreds of laws, institutions, and publications created through the efforts of these women, the future they imagined was never fully realized. The Future That Was transforms the story of decolonization and its aftermath through the history and ideas of women. By excavating these vital pasts, Mitra shows how we might envision a future of our own that is freer than the present.



About the Author



Durba Mitra is the Richard B. Wolf Associate Professor in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard University. She is the author of Indian Sex Life: Sexuality and the Origins of Modern Social Thought (Princeton).
Dimensions (Overall): 9.25 Inches (H) x 6.12 Inches (W)
Suggested Age: 22 Years and Up
Number of Pages: 336
Genre: Political Science
Sub-Genre: Colonialism & Post-Colonialism
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Format: Hardcover
Author: Durba Mitra
Language: English
Street Date: March 17, 2026
TCIN: 1004137884
UPC: 9780691233604
Item Number (DPCI): 247-27-0964
Origin: Made in the USA or Imported
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Estimated ship dimensions: 1 inches length x 6.12 inches width x 9.25 inches height
Estimated ship weight: 1 pounds
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