"Compelling." The Guardian"An insightful and inspiring history." BBC History Magazine"A tantalising revelatory book." The House"Brisk and illuminating." Times Literary Supplement"A damn good read." Morning Star"Wonderful." The ChartistUncontrollable Women is a history of radical, reformist and revolutionary women between the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 and the passing of the Great Reform Act in 1832. Very few of them are well-known today; some were unknown even in their own day. All of them contributed something to the world we now inhabit. At a time when women were supposed to leave politics to men they spoke, wrote, marched, organised, asked questions, challenged power structures, sometimes went to prison and even died. History has not usually been kind to them, and they have frequently been pushed into asides or footnotes, dismissed as secondary, or spoken over, for, or through by men and sometimes other women. In this book, they take centre stage in both their own stories and those of others, and in doing so bring different voices to the more familiar accounts of the period. These women and many others played a part in developing political ideas and freedoms as we know them today, and some fought battles which still remain to be won or raised questions that are still unresolved. These are their stories.

IllustrationsForewordAcknowledgementsNotes on TextIntroductionPart One: Frantic 'Midst the Democratic Storm1: The Furies of Hell2: A Wicked Little Democrat3: Such Mighty RagePart Two: More Turbulent than the Men1: Determined Enemies to Good Order2: The Most Abandoned of Their Sex3: Persistent AmazonsPart Three: Monsters in Female Form1: Beyond Expression Horrible2: This Infatuated Family3: The She-Champion of ImpietyPart Four: Women Without Masters1: Very Clever, Awfully Revolutionary2: Petticoat GovernmentEpilogue: An Ignorant WomanBibliographyNotesIndex