Introduction: Teresa A. Meade and Merry Wiesner-Hanks -- Thematic essays on gender issues in world history: Sexuality / Robert Nye; Labor / Laura Frader; Family and kinship / Merry Wiesner-Hanks; Religion / Ursula King; Law and politics / Susan Kinsley Kent; Race, gender, and other differences in feminist theory / Deirdre Keenan; Gender and education / Pavla Miller; How images got their gender: masculinity and femininity in the visual arts / Mary D. Sheriff; Revolution, nationalism, anti-imperialism / Temma Kaplan; Feminist movements / Barbara Winslow -- Chronological and geographical essays. Prehistory. Gender and the formation of the first human societies / Marcia-Anne Dobres; Classical and post-classical societies (2000 bce-1400 ce); Middle East and South Asia / Guity Nashat; Gendered themes in early African history / David Schoenbrun; Early Western civilization under the sign of gender: Europe, and the Mediterranean / Paul Halsall; The Americas / Rosemary A. Joyce; Gender and the development of modern society (1400-1750); Gender history, Southeast Asia, and the "World Region Framework" / Barbara Watson Andaya; Gender in early modern Western Europe / Julie Hardwick; Gender in early modern Eastern Europe and Russia / Nancy Shields Kollmann; A new world engendered, the making of the Iberian transatlantic empires / Verena Stolcke; Gender and the modern world (1750-1920); The Middle East and North Africa / Judith Tucker; Sub-Saharan Africa / Marcia Wright; South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand / Nupur Chaudhuri; Gender in East Asia (1600-1919) / Anne Walthall; Europe / Deborah Valenze; Latin America and the Caribbean / Sonya Lipsett-Rivera; North America / Linda Kealey; Gender in the contemporary world (1920-2003); Asia / Barbara Molony; Africa / Sean Redding; Russia and Eastern Europe / Barbara Evans Clements; Latin America and the Caribbean / Susan Besse; North America, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand / Charles Sowerwine with Patricia Grimshaw.