Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Five books about actual badass women who ruled kingdoms

At the B&N Reads blog Nicole Hill tagged five top books about actual badass women who ruled kingdoms, including:
The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World, by Adrienne Mayor

It can be hard to separate fact from fiction, particularly when history was written largely by men concentrated in a small pocket of the ancient world. Mayor attempts to sort through the myth to uncover the truth about the legendary Amazons, the warrior women who so vexed the rulers of ancient Greece, Rome, and Persia. Were they real? Mayor presents a compelling case that at the root of the mythology, there very much were women dotting the landscape of the ancient world who delighted in their own autonomy and ferocity. In more than one sense, the Amazons were real, and their route to becoming mythic figures has much to teach us.
Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 99 Test: The Amazons.

--Marshal Zeringue