Children's LiteraturePart of the "Women in History" series that explores women's roles from the Middle Ages through Colonial America to the Vietnam War, the Renaissance volume is rich in (mainly) unsung heroines. The authors carefully set womankind within the confines of this era, using choice primary source quotations to make their case. A fine example is a poem on the "fatal knot" of marriage: "To the Ladies/Wife and Servant are same/But only differ in the Name." Midwives, spies, musicians, writers, and artists are discussed. Rightly so, emphasis is placed on the limitations these talented human beings had to overcome in order to excel. How does a midwife fight being put out of business by a male doctor who does not know what a uterus is? Could Artemisia Gentileschi have produced her exquisitely violent paintings of Judith beheading Holofernes if she hadn't been raped at the start of her career? Here is history from the feminist slant, welcome and well told. Intelligently chosen and reproduced paintings from the period enhance the text, as do the back matter of notes, index, and annotated bibliography. 2005, Lucent/Thomson/Gale, Ages 10 to 14.