It's not really a secret around here that I am a big fan of New York Times op-ed columnist and author Gail Collins. Collins, whose witty and sharp columns often add a measure of levity to the Times op-ed pages -- particularly during last year's sometimes fraught campaign season -- has brought those same talents to her two books on the history of women in America. Her first, America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines covered the lives of women from the Mayflower through to the end of the 1950's (and in the telling made me increasing grateful I was late enough to miss most of it). And she has just followed up with When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey Of American Women From 1960 To The Present, which picks up exactly where she left off and details the lives of women over the last fifty years. (more...)