This book restructures the little-known history of the political struggles women launched in Asia and the Middle East from the 19th century onwards. The author, Kumari Jayawardena, gives detailed accounts of the women’s movements in Egypt, Turkey, Iran, India, Sri Lanka, China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, Korea and the Philippines. She distinguishes between the growth of feminism, the movement for women’s emancipation, and women’s participation in the wider national and revolutionary struggles that took place. This book challenges the view that feminism is a foreign ideology imposed on Third World countries and brings back into the mainstream of history those women ‘hidden from history,’ who played a part in the national liberation and revolutionary movements of their countries.