Price: €15.00
Add to BagThis Cork University Press edition of the Appeal is the first edited text which provides explanatory notes, supplies biographies and chronologies, gives primary and secondary sources on the lives, ideas and historical context of William Thompson and Anna Doyle Wheeler.
First edited and annotated version of the text. Provides primary and secondary sources on the author. Despite its 1825 publication it addresses many current issues of oppression and inequality.
The Appeal is a treatise, published over 170 years ago, which demands equal rights for women and men in a patriarchal society. So radical and forward thinking was The Appeal it is little wonder that it was condemned in its day and consigned to the dusty shelves of invisibility. It is remarkably contemporary in its concerns about justice and rights for the needy and the vulnerable in society: women and men who find they are without rights and respect because they lack the power provided by position, money or education. Thompson worked tirelessly within the Co-operative movement in the early nineteenth century and become a critic of capitalism and a spokesman for social science. Social science, in these early origins, was the study for the promotion of human happiness. With the betterment of human lives as the goal, Thompson exposed the abuses of power that blocked human happiness.
Contemporary social science and the development of agricultural co-operatives can trace their history to William Thompson. He was a philosopher of the people, who steadily called on men and women to unite and take control of their own destinies. The story of the Appeal is applicable wherever there is human oppression, wherever women seek an influential voice in creating a more co-operative society. This is what makes it relevant 170 years after it was first published, human oppression is still a feature of many late twentieth century societies. Thompson was not alone in this project of reform of social institutions. His collaborator and dearest friend, Anna Doyle Wheeler, provided a woman's experience and reflection for the Appeal. The Appeal is not a feminist document that encourages animosity between sexes. Divisiveness between the sexes is rejected as destructive by Thompson and Wheeler. The human task is to re-educate women and men to work for social change and co-operative forms of living. Co-operation, not competition between the sexes makes possible the achievement of happiness that is not dictated by the powerful few.
Softback: 1997
Printed Pages: 218
Size: 210 x 135mm
ISBN: 9781859180587
