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Synopsis
Contributors explore the experience, prosecution, and meaning of rape in American history from the time of early contact between Europeans and Native Americans to the present. Essays explore changes in rape laws over three centuries in a wide geographic area, and analyze topics and situations that are unique or relevant in US history, such as interracial encounters due to colonization and slavery.
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Library Journal
With this collection of essays regarding victims of rape, Smith (Sex and Sexuality in Early America and Breaking the Bonds: Marital Discord in Pennsylvania, 1730-1830) gives us a needed historical perspective on sex without consent. Addressing the issue of whether sexual coercion means the same today as it has throughout the 300 years represented, the essays, which focus heavily on race and social class, indicate that not much has changed over the years. Nowhere is this more apparent than in passages that place several of the incidents from earlier centuries in modern times. Medical knowledge, however, has made one difference back in Puritan days, a woman who conceived as a consequence of rape would be punished, for presumably she had enjoyed the sex. Thorough documentation for each essay provides a pathway to further research. This is an excellent addition to both academic and public libraries. Sandra Isaacson, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Las Vegas Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.