Book excerpt: Extrait de la couverture : "Is there something in the basic makeup of human beings that dedicate behavior along gender lines? What can we actually know about the gender of the past? How has social 'progress' affected gender? [This book] ... explores perspectives on the nature of sex and gender throughtout the world. This overview begins with a review of theories regarding the role that gender may have played in past societies. The second section focuses on the place of women and men in a wide variety of ways of life - from foragers to members of the global community. Lastly, the third section focuses on topics that are most often of interest to students : how gender constructs wok within families, how the gender inditities of individuals are created, how power affects gender, how supernatural beliefs a religious ideologies affect gender, and how the realities of globalization and transnationalism influence the lives of men and women."