Showing titles in Women

On a cold winter day in 1832, Sarah Maria Cornell was found dead in a quiet farmyard in a small New England town. When her troubled past and a secret correspondence with charismatic Methodist minister Reverend Ephraim Avery was uncovered, more questions emerged. Was Sarah’s death a suicide...or something much darker? Determined to uncover the real story, Victorian writer Catharine Read Arnold Williams threw herself into the investigation as the trial was unfolding and wrote what many claim to be the first American true-crime narrative, Fall River.

Virginal, chaste, humble, patiently waiting for rescue by brave knights and handsome princes: this idealized—and largely mythical—notion of the medieval noblewoman still lingers. Yet the reality was very different, as Kelcey Wilson-Lee shows in this vibrant account of the five daughters of Edward I, often known as Longshanks. The lives of these sisters—Eleanora, Joanna, Margaret, Mary, and Elizabeth—ran the gamut of experiences open to royal women in the Middle Ages.

Normal Women is a radical retelling of our nation’s story – not of the rise and fall of kings and the occasional queen – but of social and cultural change, powered by the determination, persistence and effectiveness of women – from 1066 to modern times. Did women really do nothing to shape England’s culture and traditions in nine centuries of turmoil, plague, famine, religious reform and the rise of empire and industry?

Author Carol F. Karlsen reveals the social construction of witchcraft in 17th-century New England and illuminates the larger contours of gender relations in that society and attempts to answer the question why some women were vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft and possession.

Queen Elizabeth II was famous for longer than anyone who has ever lived. When people spoke of her, they spoke of themselves; when they dreamed of her, they dreamed of themselves. She mirrored their hopes and anxieties. To the optimist, she seemed an optimist; to the pessimist, a pessimist; to the awestruck, charismatic; and to the cynical, humdrum. Though by nature reserved and unassuming, her presence could fill presidents and rock gods with terror. For close to a century, she inhabited the psyche of a nation.

This is a neglected history. No attempt at a sweeping, definitive, exhaustive history of the world but something quieter, more intimate and particular, told by Annabelle Hirsch through her selection of 101 objects, and now brought thrillingly alive for you by a chorus of 101 remarkable women in this ground-breaking audio release.

To many Queen Victoria was a ruler shrouded in myth and mystique, portrayed as an aging, stiff widow. But in truth Britain’s longest-reigning monarch was passionate, expressive, humorous, and unconventional. A. N. Wilson’s exhaustively researched and definitive biography includes a wealth of new material from previously unseen sources, showing us Queen Victoria as she’s never been seen before.

The story of the family who rose from the Frankfurt ghetto to become synonymous with wealth and power has been much mythologised. Yet half the Rothschilds, the women, remain virtually unknown. Natalie Livingstone follows the extraordinary lives of the English branch of the Rothschild women from the dawn of the 19th century to the early years of the 21st.

The best-selling revisionist biography of one of the great women of the 16th century. Orphaned in infancy, Catherine de Medici was the sole legitimate heiress to the Medici family fortune. Married at 14 to the future Henri II of France, she was constantly humiliated by his influential mistress, Diane de Poitiers. When her husband died as a result of a duelling accident in Paris, Catherine was made queen regent during the short reign of her eldest son (married to Mary Queen of Scots, and like many of her children he died young).

From Wilkie Collins to the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the traditional image of the Victorian detective is male. Few people realize that women detectives successfully investigated Victorian Britain, working both with the police and for private agencies, which they sometimes managed themselves. Sara Lodge recovers these forgotten women’s lives. She also reveals the sensational role played by the fantasy female detective in Victorian melodrama and popular fiction, enthralling a public who relished the spectacle of a cross-dressing, fist-swinging heroine.

From the birth of hip-hop in the 1970s to today, women have been just as integral to the growth and development of the rap game as their male counterparts. Nonetheless, they’re consistently shortchanged as artists, creators, renegades, and cultural visionaries in prevailing histories of the genre. The Motherlode changes that.

Created in the aftermath of World War II, the Central Intelligence Agency relied on women even as it attempted to channel their talents and keep them down. Women sent cables, made dead drops, and maintained the agency's secrets. Despite discrimination—even because of it—women who started as clerks, secretaries, or unpaid spouses rose to become some of the CIA's shrewdest operatives. They were unlikely spies—and that's exactly what made them perfect for the role.

Often compared to Catherine the Great or Elizabeth I, Caroline of Ansbach is the great queen Britain forgot it had - a thinker, politician, schemer, patroness and matriarch. This book offers a remarkable portrait of a woman of great political astuteness and ambition, a radical icon of female power. The intellectual superior of her husband, George II, Caroline is credited with bringing the Enlightenment to Britain through her sponsorship of red-hot debates about science, religion, philosophy and the nature of the universe.

Amazing women with a story to tell. Join Mae West as she shakes up the entertainment industry with her wit and wisdom or create colorful art pieces with Yayoi Kusama that are larger than life itself. These women in history defied the expectations of conventional society to live the lives they chose, regardless of what others thought.

Extraordinary women have held positions of power throughout history. But, aside from the select few, why do we not hear about them? The middle ages are seen as a bloodthirsty time of Vikings, Saints and Kings: a patriarchal society that oppressed and excluded women. But by digging a little deeper into the truth, drawing on evidence from all disciplines, we can see that the 'dark' ages were anything but. BBC historian Janina Ramirez has uncovered countless influential women's names struck out of historical records, with the word femina annotated beside them.

Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary-Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from Fleet Street, Knightsbridge, Wolverhampton, Sweden and Wales. They wrote ballads, ran coffeehouses and lived on country estates; they breathed ink dust from printing presses and escaped people traffickers. What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888. The person responsible was never identified, but the character created by the press to fill that gap has become far more famous than any of these five women.

Taking us behind drawing room doors and into high society ballrooms, The Game of Hearts follows six leading ladies and their family, friends, and contemporaries as they move from matchmaking to matrimony and beyond. Candid insights into the competitive world of the marriage mart; real stories of rakish husbands and rich heiresses; and true tales of lost and long-lasting love, reveal not just Regency courtship customs, but truly captivating lives. Author Felicity Day pieces together a rich and intimate view of this most beloved period of British history.

The remarkable double life of an American-turned-British spy, Virginia Hall, a 'bolshie' woman from Maryland who, determined to overcome a physical disability that threatened to define her life, successfully infiltrated Vichy France for England's SOE before America's entry into WWII and then, three years later, for the SOS, providing crucial intelligence and logistics for the mounting French Resistance and, later, Allied troops.

A smattering of queens, such as Queen Elizabeth I and Catherine the Great of Russia, are known and celebrated, but many more have been glossed over, maligned by historians or dismissed as mere bit players on the world stage. We are all familiar with the great Roman emperors, but what of Queen Zenobia, a rebel queen of the Middle East who took on the Roman Empire? William the Conqueror, the Norman invader of England in 1066, is an iconic figure in history, but how much do you know about his powerful ally and wife, Matilda of Flanders?

Stephanie Racine narrates Women: Our History, which reexamines history from a female perspective. Packed full of evocative facts, and with a foreword by Lucy Worsley, this audiobook reveals the key events in women's history - from early matriarchal societies through women's suffrage, the Suffragette movement, 20th-century feminism and gender politics, to recent movements such as #MeToo and International Women's Day - and the key role women have had in shaping our past.

Throughout history, women have played integral roles in family, society, religion, government, war - in short, in all aspects of human civilization. Their contributions have often shaped history and shifted the axis of power for later generations of women. And yet, unearthing their stories from the historical record has often been a challenge. In Powerful Women of the Medieval World, Professor Dorsey Armstrong will introduce you to 10 amazing women who played vital roles in the Middle Ages.

Betty Boyd Caroli's engrossing and informative First Ladies is an essential resource for anyone interested in the role of America's First Ladies. Caroli observes the role as it has shifted and evolved from ceremonial backdrop to substantive world figure. This expanded and updated fifth edition presents Caroli's keen political analysis and astute observations of recent developments, including Melania Trump's reluctance to take on the mantle and former First Lady Hilary Clinton's recent run for president. Caroli here contributes a new preface and updated chapters.

What was life really like for women in the medieval period? How did they think about sex, death and God? Could they live independent lives? And how can we hear the stories of women from this period?

Forgotten Women reaches around the world and its history to rediscover, retell and reinstate the lives of over 190 important and significant women. From Neolithic times to modernity, Zing Tsjeng has traced the women who have shaped their age and revolutionised society. In this book lies the strength, lives and sacrifices of women who have refused to accept the hand they've been dealt and have changed the course of our futures accordingly.

This is the incredible true story of the greatest spy you’ve never heard of - as told to the author by the woman herself. At the outbreak of World War Two, Nancy Wake’s glamorous life in the South of France seemed far removed from the fighting. But when her husband was called up for military service, Nancy felt she had just as much of a duty to fight for freedom. By 1943, her fearless undercover work even in the face of personal tragedy had earned her a place on the Gestapo’s "most wanted" list.

Annie is the eldest daughter of a laundress in Acton, London, raised to keep the rich families of Kensington spick-and-span. As she grows up in poverty in the 1920s and 1930s, her life centres on the family business, working long hours of hard physical labour. When she's not in the laundry she's looking after her younger brother and two stepsisters. But she's haunted by thoughts of her real father and what happened to him. All she knows is that he died in the Great War - her mother will not talk about him, and his very existence is shrouded in secrecy.

New York City, 1929. A sanatorium, a deadly disease, and a dire nurse shortage. So begins the remarkable true story of the Black nurses who helped cure tuberculosis, one of the world's deadliest plagues, told alongside the often strange chronicle of the cure's discovery. Spanning the Great Depression and moving through World War II and beyond, this story follows the intrepid young women, the 'Black Angels', who, for twenty years, risked their lives working under dreadful conditions while caring for the city's poorest.

Let Sandi Toksvig guide you on an eclectic meander through the calendar, illuminating neglected corners of history to tell tales of the fascinating figures you didn't learn about at school. From popes who gave birth during papal processions, to the inventor of Scrabble, to pioneering civil rights activist Ida B. Wells, who refused to give up her seat on a train decades before Rosa Parks was born. As witty and entertaining as it is instructive, this is an essential companion to each day of the year.

What did it feel like to be a woman living in Paris during the years 1939 to 1949? These were years of fear, power, aggression, courage, deprivation and secrets until, finally, there was renewal and retribution. Even at the darkest moments, dogs and cats might be abandoned howling on the street, the swastika flew from the Eiffel Tower and danger lurked on every corner, but glamour was ever present.

Generations of children have fallen in love with the pioneer saga of the Ingalls family, of Pa and Ma, Laura and her sisters, and their loyal dog. Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books have taught millions of Americans about frontier life, giving inspiration to many and in the process becoming icons of our national identity. Yet few realize that this best-selling series wandered far from the actual history of the Ingalls family and from what Laura herself understood to be central truths about pioneer life.