Barakso has written a brief and accessible history of the National Organization for Women (NOW), the first group of the 'second wave' of feminism and still the primary women's movement association.... The heart of the book focuses on almost 40 years of national politics and players within the organization. Recommended for large public libraries and academic libraries.(Library Journal) Barakso takes a measured approach to her analysis, neither overly praising the NOW leadership for adhering to founding principles, nor chastising them for slavish adherence to ideals that may have compromised the organization's ability to react to changing circumstances. Recommended.(Choice) Barakso's data sources are impressive, including documents from the national NOW archives, interviews with a small stratified sample of NOW leaders and members, and participant observation at NOW conferences.... I find Barakso's depiction of NOW as being more complicated that a cookie-cutter liberal feminist organization convincing and her argument about the impact of governance structure an important return to earlier approaches focusing on internal movement processes.... The book has much to offer both social movement scholars and scholars interested in the women's movement from a variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspective.(Mobilization)
