“[I]nstructive and fascinating…. [W]ell researched … expertly narrated…. [A] powerful account of the achievements of the first feminists….” — Jane Fenoulhet, Modern Language Review
“[T]his book is an important contribution to both Dutch feminist historiography and the wider literature on the women’s movement, imperialism, and women’s work.” — Francisca De Haan , American Historical Review
"Transforming the Public Sphere makes an original and valuable contribution to gender studies literature that will also interest historians of European imperialism. . . ." — Marybeth Carlson, History
"[R]eaders of Labor History will find considerable interest in this study, which weaves considerations of labor into every aspect of its analysis. . . . The authors' deft and convincing explication of visual culture . . . stands as the book's most important contribution." — Jocelyn Olcott , Labor History
"[W]ell-written and beautifully enriched by numerous illustrations." — Whitney Walton, Journal of Modern History
"Well-written. . . . Transforming the Public Sphere is a significant scholarly contribution to the field of women's history and should be on the book shelf of every student of industrial exhibitions, women's labor, and Dutch colonialism." — Charlene G. Garfinkle , H-Women, H-Net Reviews
"Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, . . . this is in many ways an exemplary work of social history. . . . Transforming the Public Sphere is a study that will be of great interest to a wide variety of historians." — Becky E. Conekin, Journal of Colonialism & Colonial History
“A unique study based on a virtual treasury of archival materials, Transforming the Public Sphere touches on many of the most important issues of major concern today to historians of feminism and women’s history.” — Marilyn Boxer, coauthor of Connecting Spheres: European Women in a Globalizing World, 1500 to the Present
“Despite the veritable explosion of historical work on exhibitionary culture in the last decade, relatively little attention has been paid to the role of women in organizing the transnational spectacles that dominated the culturescapes of imperial modernity . . . . Transforming the Public Sphere . . . offers an important corrective to this oversight.” — Antoinette Burton, from the introduction