Margaret Fell and the rise of Quakerism

Margaret Fell was a vigorous, outspoken and authoritative first-generation co-leader with George Fox over the first 50 years of Quakerism. The book probes Fell's public and domestic roles, her religious world view and her practical work as a chief architect of the emerging Quaker Church along with Fox. The family, social, economic and intellectual facets of Fell's life illustrate that the hypothesis of patriarchy as an explanatory model of 17th-century social order is inadequate, for it fails to draw out the complexity of gender roles in religious movements in early-modern England. Bonnelyn Young Kunze is co-editor of "Court, Country and Culture: Essays on Early Modern British History in Honor of Perez Zagorin" and a contributor to the American Historical Association's "Guide to Historical Literature" for European women's history.