Elena Serrano, Ladies of Honor and Merit. Gender, Useful Knowledge, and Politics in Enlightened Spain (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2022)

The research field generally called “women, gender, and science” has undoubtedly received increasing attention since at least the 1980s. Ladies of Honor and Merit: Gender, Useful Knowledge, and Politics in Enlightened Spain by Elena Serrano builds on this rich historiography—to which Serrano herself has contributed significantly—while opening up new and more varied perspectives. Dealing with the participation of high-ranking women in the “improvement movement” in late 18th-century Spain, the book addresses a diverse assortment of topics, such as the multiple meanings attributed to “useful knowledge” in Enlightenment societies and cultures, the intertwinement of science and politics, the social construction of authority and expertise, and the part played by gender in nation-building campaigns. It also combines different strands of historiography, still rarely considered today when it comes to “women, gender and science,” and especially the historiography of the Enlightenment—which in recent decades has shown the crucial role of gender in this complex social and cultural movement—as well as the recent literature on Enlightened Spain. [...]