This book is a socio-historical analysis of the relationship between women, politics and the public sphere. It looks at the legacy of eighteenth-century intellectual groupings which were dominated by women such as members of the ‘bluestocking circles’ and other more radical intellectual and philosophical thinkers such as Catherine Macaulay and Mary Wollstonecraft. These individuals and groups which emerged in the eighteenth century established ‘intellectual spaces’ for the emergence of women public intellectuals in subsequent centuries. Women public intellectuals in the US examined in the book include Samantha Power, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Elizabeth Warren, Condoleezza Rice, Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton, and Sheryl Sandberg. The implications for the political representation of women in the West and globally is considered, highlighting how women public intellectuals now reflect much more social and cultural diversity. The book is about the fault-lines established in the eighteenth century for later developments in social and political discourse.