History from a Woman's Perspective- A Book Blog

White House Wild Child: How Alice Roosevelt Broke All the Rules and Won the Heart of America  Author: Shelley Fraser Mickle Genre: History, Nonfiction, Biography  Publisher: Imagine Release Date: 2023 Pages: 256 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: The fascinating historical biography of America’s most memorable first daughter, Alice Roosevelt, whose free spirit and status made her the Princess Diana and Jackie O of the early 20th century.       During Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency—from 1901 to 1909, when Mark Twain called him the most popular man in America—his daughter Alice Roosevelt mesmerized the world with her antics and beauty.      Alice was known for carrying a gun, a copy of the Constitution, and a green snake in her purse. When her father told her she couldn’t smoke under his roof, she climbed to the top of the White House and smoked on the roof. She became the most famous w...

A Rome of One’s Own: The Forgotten Women of the Roman Empire  Author: Emma Southon Genre: History, Nonfiction, Biography  Publisher: Abrams Press Publication Date: 2023 Pages: 415 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review  Synopsis: This wildly entertaining new history of Rome uses the lives of 21 women to upend our understanding of the ancient world, from the acclaimed author of A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum .       This is a history of women who caused outrage, led armies in rebellion, wrote poetry; who lived independently or under the thumb of emperors. Told with humor and verve as well as a deep scholarly background, A Rome of One’s Own highlights women overlooked and misunderstood, and through them offers a fascinating and groundbreaking chronicle of the ancient world.        The history of Rome has long been narrow and one-sided, essentially a history of “the Doing ...

Bloody Mary Author: Carolly Erickson Genre: History, Nonfiction, Biography  Publisher: St. Martin’s Press-3PL Publication Date: 2024 Pages: 828 Source: Personal Collection  Synopsis: Here is the tragic, stormy life of Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon. Her story is a chronicle of courage and faith, betrayal and treachery—all set amidst the splendor, pageantry, squalor, and intrigue of sixteenth-century Europe.        The history of Mary Tudor is an improbable blend of triumph, humiliation, heartbreak, and devotion. In Bloody Mary , historian Carolly Erickson recounts it all against the turbulent background of European politics, war, and religious strife of the mid-1500s. The result is a rare portrait of the times and of a woman elevated to unprecedented power in a world ruled and defined by men.        My Review: Mary Tudor is known as the first reigning queen of England. However, she left be...

Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power Author: Leah Redmond Chang Genre: Nonfiction, History, Biography  Publisher: Farrar, Strays, and Giroux Release Date: 2023 Pages: 490 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: The boldly original, dramatic intertwined story of Catherine de’ Medici, Elisabeth de Valois, and Mary, Queen of Scots—three queens exercising power in a world dominated by men.        Orphaned from infancy, Catherine de’ Medici endured a tumultuous childhood. Married to the French king, she was widowed by forty, only to become the power behind the French throne during a period of intense civil strife. In 1546, Catherine gave birth to a daughter, Elisabeth de Valois, who would become Queen of Spain. Two years later, Catherine welcomed to her nursery the beguiling young Mary Queen of Scots, who would later become her daughter-in-law.       Together, Cather...

  The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts: The True Story of the Bondwoman’s Narrative Author: Gregg Hecimovich Genre: History, Nonfiction, Biography  Publisher: Ecco Release Date: 2023 Pages: 430 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: A groundbreaking study of the first Black female novelist and her life as an enslaved woman, from the biographer who solved the mystery of her identity, with a foreword by Henry Louis Gates Jr.       In 1857, a woman escaped enslavement on a North Carolina plantation and fled to a farm in New York. In hiding, she worked on a manuscript that would make her famous long after her death. The novel, The Bondwoman’s Narrative, was first published in 2002 to great acclaim, but the author’s identity remained unknown. Over a decade later, Professor Gregg Hecimovich unraveled the mystery of the author’s name and, in The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts, hefinally tells her story.   ...

Pure Wit: The Revolutionary Life of Margaret Cavendish Author: Francesca Peacock Genre: History, Nonfiction, Biography  Publisher: Pegasus Books Publication Date: 2023 Pages: 358 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review.  Synopsis: A biography of the remarkable—and in her time scandalous—seventeenth-century writer Margaret Cavendish, who pioneered the science fiction novel.       "My ambition is not only to be Empress, but Authoress of a whole world."—Margaret Cavendish       Margaret Cavendish, then Lucas, was born in 1623 to an aristocratic family. In 1644, as England descended into civil war, she joined the court of the formidable Queen Henrietta Maria at Oxford. With the rest of the court she went into self-imposed exile in France. Her family's wealth and lands were forfeited by Parliament. It was in France that she met her partner, William Cavendish, Marquess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a marriage that...

Enheduana: Princess, Priestess, Poetess (Routledge Ancient Biographies) Author: Alhena Gadotti Genre: Nonfiction, History, Biography Publisher: Routledge Publication Date: May 2, 2025 Pages: 132 Source: Personal Collection  Synopsis: Enheduana: Princess, Priestess, Poetess offers the first comprehensive biography of Enheduana, daughter of Sargon of Agade and one of the most intriguing, yet elusive, women from antiquity.      Royal princess, priestess, and alleged author, Enheduana deserves as much attention as her martial relatives. A crucial contributor to her father’s military ambitions, Enheduana nonetheless wielded religious and economic power, as evidenced by primary and secondary sources. Even more interestingly, Enheduana remained alive in the cultural memory of those who came after her, so much so that works attributed to her were integrated into the scribal curriculum centuries after her death. This book aims to situate Enheduana in her own histor...

Enheduana: The Complete Poems of the World’s First Author Author: Sophus Helle Genre: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Religion Publisher: Yale University Press Release Date: 2024 Pages: 228 Source: Personal Collection  Synopsis: The complete poems of the priestess Enheduana, the world’s first known author, newly translated from the original Sumerian.      Enheduana was a high priestess and royal princess who lived in Ur, in what is now southern Iraq, about 2300 BCE. Not only does Enheduana have the distinction of being the first author whose name we know, but the poems attributed to her are hymns of great power. They are a rare flash of the female voice in the often male-dominated ancient world, treating themes that are as relevant today as they were four thousand years ago: exile, social disruption, the power of storytelling, gender-bending identities, the devastation of war, and the terrifying forces of nature.       This book is ...