<div>How did marriage, considered a religious duty in medieval Europe, become a venue for personal fulfillment in contemporary America? How did the notion of romantic love, a novelty in the Middle Ages, become a prerequisite for marriage today? And, if the original purpose of marriage was procreation, what exactly is the purpose of marriage for women now? Combining "a scholar's rigor and a storyteller's craft"(San Jose Mercury News), distinguished cultural historian Marilyn Yalom charts the evolution of marriage in the Judeo Christian world through the centuries and shows how radically our ideas about marriage have changed. For any woman who is, has been, or ever will be married, this intellectually vigorous and gripping historical analysis of marriage sheds new light on an institution most people take for granted, and that may, in fact, be experiencing its most convulsive upheaval since the Reformation.</div>

A History of the Wife

<div>&#8220;Fascinating . . . The Social Sex is a paean to companionship. Share it with a bosom friend.&#8221; &#8212;NPRFrom historian and acclaimed feminist author of How the French Invented Love and A History of the Wife comes this rich, multifaceted history of the evolution of female friendshipIn today&#8217;s culture, the bonds of female friendship are taken as a given. But only a few centuries ago, the idea of female friendship was completely unacknowledged, even pooh-poohed. Only men, the reasoning went, had the emotional and intellectual depth to develop and sustain these meaningful relationships.Surveying history, literature, philosophy, religion, and pop culture, acclaimed author and historian Marilyn Yalom and co-author Theresa Donovan Brown demonstrate how women were able to co-opt the public face of friendship throughout the years. Chronicling shifting attitudes toward friendship&#8212;both female and male&#8212;from the Bible and the Romans to the Enlightenment to the women&#8217;s rights movements of the &#8216;60s up to Sex and the City and Bridesmaids, they reveal how the concept of female friendship has been inextricably linked to the larger social and cultural movements that have defined human history.Armed with Yalom and Brown as our guides, we delve into the fascinating historical episodes and trends that illuminate the story of friendship between women: the literary salon as the original book club, the emergence of female professions and the working girl, the phenomenon of gossip, the advent of women&#8217;s sports, and more.Lively, informative, and richly detailed, The Social Sex is a revelatory cultural history.</div>

The Social Sex

<div>&#8220;Marilyn Yalom has written the rare book that illuminates something that always has been dimly perceived but never articulated, in this case that that the power of the chess queen reflects the evolution of female power in the western world.&#8221; &#8212;Cleveland Plain DealerEveryone knows that the queen is the most dominant piece in chess, but few people know that the game existed for five hundred years without her. It wasn't until chess became a popular pastime for European royals during the Middle Ages that the queen was born and was gradually empowered to become the king's fierce warrior and protector. Birth of the Chess Queen examines the five centuries between the chess queen's timid emergence in the early days of the Holy Roman Empire to her elevation during the reign of Isabel of Castile. Marilyn Yalom, inspired by a handful of surviving medieval chess queens, traces their origin and spread from Spain, Italy, and Germany to France, England, Scandinavia, and Russia. In a lively and engaging historical investigation, Yalom draws parallels between the rise of the chess queen and the ascent of female sovereigns in Europe, presenting a layered, fascinating history of medieval courts and internal struggles for power.</div>

Birth of the Chess Queen

<div>&#8220;Absolutely marvelous&#8230;lively and learned&#8230;.Marilyn Yalom&#8217;s book is a distinguished contribution to our experience of a great literature, as well as an endearing memoir.&#8221; &#8212;Diane Johnson, author of Lulu in Marrakech and Le Divorce&#8220;[An] enchanting tour of French literature&#8212;from Abelard and Heloise in the 12th century to Marguerite Duras in the 20th and Philippe Sollers in the 21st.&#8221; &#8212;Publishers Weekly (starred review)How the French Invented Love is an entertaining and masterful history of love &#224; la fran&#231;aise by acclaimed scholar Marilyn Yalom. Spanning the Middle Ages to the present, Yalom explores a love-obsessed culture through its great works of literature&#8212;from Moliere&#8217;s comic love to the tragic love of Racine, from the existential love of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre to the romanticism of George Sand and Alfred de Musset. A thoroughly engaging homage to French culture and literature interlaced with the author&#8217;s delicious personal anecdotes, How the French Invented Love is ideal for fans of Alain de Botton, Adam Gopnik, and Simon Schama. </div>

How the French Invented Love

<div>An illustrated cultural history of America through the lens of its gravestones and burial practices—featuring eighty black-and-white photographs. In The American Resting Place, cultural historian Marilyn Yalom and her son, photographer Reid Yalom, visit more than 250 cemeteries across the United States. Following a coast-to-coast trajectory that mirrors the historical pattern of American migration, their destinations highlight America’s cultural and ethnic diversity as well as the evolution of burials rites over the centuries. Yalom’s incisive reading of gravestone inscriptions reveals changing ideas about death and personal identity, as well as how class and gender play out in stone. Rich particulars include the story of one seventeenth-century Bostonian who amassed a thousand pairs of gloves in his funeral-going lifetime, the unique burial rites and funerary symbols found in today’s Native American cultures, and a “lost” Czech community brought uncannily to life in Chicago’s Bohemian National Columbarium. From fascinating past to startling future—DVDs embedded in tombstones, “green” burials, and “the new aesthetic of death”—The American Resting Place is the definitive history of the American cemetery.</div>

Marilyn Yalom
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Books By Marilyn Yalom (5 Books)

A History of the Wife

The Social Sex

Birth of the Chess Queen

How the French Invented Love

The American Resting Place

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Marilyn YalomFollow this author

Books By Marilyn Yalom (5 Books)

A History of the Wife

The Social Sex

Birth of the Chess Queen

How the French Invented Love

The American Resting Place

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© 2024 OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

Marilyn Yalom
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