ABSTRACT
This chapter examines some of the most dramatic extensions of history's subject matter. Fifty years ago women were ignored, and Third World countries were treated in a narrowly Western perspective. Today, women's and gender history is regarded as central to the understanding of the past. Meanwhile postcolonial historians are not only developing histories of Africa and Asia ‘from below’, but are insisting that the history of the former colonial powers be reassessed from the perspective of the colonized.
