Presented in a lively manner, this book explores and validates the experiences of women around the world through the autobiographical stories of seven women from different cultures. Generally, women's stories are untold, unheard, or unrecorded. But no more elegant tool exists to describe the human condition than the personal narrative. The author has taken each of these stories, put them into perspective, and related them to larger themes and issues. Because of the varied cultures represented by these women, A Sounding of Women: Autobiographies from Unexpected Places offers a strong comparative viewpoint. Written by an anthropologist who has taught undergraduates for 25 years and designed the first official Women's Studies course in Louisiana, this book has been forged in classroom experiences and fueled by the explosion of fascinating research on women since the 1970's. Ward has done fieldwork in three different cultures of the world and has written four books specifically for the kind of audiences who like to think about and read about anthropology.