Groundswell: Grassroots Feminist Activism in Postwar America offers an essential perspective on the post-1960 movement for women’s equality and liberation. Tracing the histories of feminist activism, through the National Organization of Women (NOW) chapters in three different locations: Memphis, Tennessee, Columbus, Ohio, and San Francisco, California, Gilmore explores how feminist identity, strategies, and goals were shaped by geographic location. Departing from the usual conversation about the national icons and events of second wave feminism, this book concentrates on local histories, and asks the questions that must be answered on the micro level: Who joined? Who did not? What did they do? Why did they do it? Together with its analysis of feminist political history, these individual case studies from the Midwest, South, and West coast shed light on the national women’s movement in which they played a part. In its coverage of women’s activism outside the traditional East Coast centers of New York and Boston, Groundswell provides a more diverse history of feminism, showing how social and political change was made from the ground up.

本書は、フェミニズム史の「大都市のアイコン」という枠組みを解体し、草の根のうねりがいかに世界を塗り替えたかを浮き彫りにします。各地の風土に根ざした闘争が、政治運動を超えた「魂の連帯」として描かれる点に真骨頂があります。名もなき女性たちの決断が大きな波へと変わるプロセスには、読む者の胸を打つ力強いダイナミズムが宿っています。 著者は、従来の歴史観で見落とされがちな女性たちの「生きた証」を拾い上げ、紙面から声が立ち上がるような臨場感を描き出します。このミクロな視点こそが、現代に「変革はどこからでも始められる」という熱狂的な希望を与えてくれます。歴史の地層を掘り下げるこの知的な旅は、あなたの社会観を根底から揺さぶるに違いありません。