Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World is a 1986 publication by Sri Lankan author Kumari Jayawardena. Kumari’s book has been described as a feminist classic and widely used in gender and women’s studies to date as a primer of Third-World Feminism. The book follows case studies about women at the front line of feminist, socialist and political movements across eleven countries in the East: Egypt, Iran, Turkey, India, Sri Lanka, China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia, that share a history of direct assault and hostility by imperialist regimes interested in subjugating their territory and indirect exploitation in instilling the enslavement schemes of these regimes. These case studies are set against a background of growing nationalism- liberation struggles of the Eastern world to free themselves of their colonizers, which created a common struggle for emancipation between feminist and nationalist movements. Background and publication In the 1980s, Kumari was arranging teaching material for the women and development program at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Netherlands as a visiting scholar. At the time, she was working on Feminism in Europe: Liberal and Socialist Strategies with her colleague Maria Mies from ISS. Kumari felt the lack of a parallel account of women’s historical struggles in the ‘third world’ noting that, “There was a gap about our part of the world” She compiled research she found at the International Archive for the Women’s Movement in Amsterdam concerning the history of women in the third world into a manuscript that she wrote on train rides between The Hague and Brussels The manuscript was first published in 1982 and while Kumari had originally wanted to add pictures, it was printed as a small book and subsequently, used by her students at the ISS. Later, it was picked up by Zed books who expanded and published it in a paperback format on 1 May 1986. Synopsis Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World begins by introducing the countries it selects to focus on: Egypt, Iran, Turkey, India, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia. Kumari analyses how the common history of colonial rule has shaped these countries through similar experiences but also points out the differences in their belief systems: Egypt, Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan share Islamic history; India and Sri Lanka err towards beliefs based on Buddhism; Chinese, Japanese and Korean ideals are rooted in Confucius’s philosophy and