This book is primarily about what gender historians do. It is not a history of gender, but rather it is about approaches to the field and their development, and considers some of the topics in history that have concerned gender historians. I have tried throughout to focus on gender or the meanings and expectations concerning what it means to be male or female. It is not a book about women’s history, although there is some discussion of the field and its contributions to gender history. The primary purpose of this volume is to provide an introduction to the subject both for students who have had some training in history but have not previously encountered gender history as a field, and for students who have studied women and gender in other disciplines but have not had the opportunity to learn about how historians approach these topics. The book takes up certain controversies that have developed among scholars of women’s and gender history, it provides an overview of some of the complexities in studying gender history, and it considers new directions in the field. This should make it useful to more advanced students and scholars who might find such an overview of value.