The World Split Open
Ruth Rosen
Viking 446 pages, $34.95
Opening with a chronology that lists Jesse Helms’ 1972 election to the Senate and Marilyn Quayle’s promotion of “family values” at the 1992 Republican National Convention as two backlash moments in the modern women’s movement, this thoroughly absorbing book sheds light on the feminist fight for equality. Rosen, a historian and journalist who teaches at the University of California at Davis, weaves together 10 years of archival research and interviews to contribute her own volume to the growing literature on the movement that, as the subtitle says, “changed America.” Written to make readers feel as though they were there, “The World Split Open” debunks many of the myths surrounding the movement. For instance, we learn that feminists never burned their bras; African-American women initially supported the movement more than their white counterparts; the FBI hired hundreds of women to infiltrate the movement.
