A good week for new books on strong women.

Isabella: The Warrior Queen
by Kirstin Downey

Kirstin Downey makes medieval history read like a modern day thriller. Queen Isabella’s life unfolded at the pivotal moment when the old world was astonished by the discovery of the new, and this graceful and insightful biography reveals her crucial role in making it happen.” –Deirdre Bair, National Book Award-winning author of Samuel Beckett

Joan of Arc: A Life Transfigured by Kathryn Harrison

The profoundly inspiring and fully documented saga of Joan of Arc, the young peasant girl whose “voices” moved her to rally the French nation and a reluctant king against British invaders in 1428, has fascinated artistic figures as diverse as William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Voltaire, George Bernard Shaw, Bertolt Brecht, Carl Dreyer, and Robert Bresson. Was she a divinely inspired saint? A schizophrenic? A demonically possessed heretic, as her persecutors and captors tried to prove?

Victoria: A Life by A. N. Wilson

When Queen Victoria died in 1901, she had ruled for nearly sixty-four years. She was a mother of nine and grandmother of forty-two and the matriarch of royal Europe through her children’s marriages. To many, Queen Victoria is a ruler shrouded in myth and mystique, an aging, stiff widow paraded as the figurehead to an all-male imperial enterprise. But in truth, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch was one of the most passionate, expressive, humorous and unconventional women who ever lived, and the story of her life continues to fascinate.

The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore

A riveting work of historical detection revealing that the origin of one of the world’s most iconic superheroes hides within it a fascinating family story–and a crucial history of twentieth-century feminism
Wonder Woman, created in 1941, is the most popular female superhero of all time. Aside from Superman and Batman, no superhero has lasted as long or commanded so vast and wildly passionate a following. It’s so strong that she tends to feature in many an interesting dc vs. marvel analysis online. Like every other superhero, Wonder Woman has a secret identity. Unlike every other superhero, she has also has a secret history.
The Secret History of Wonder Woman is a tour de force of intellectual and cultural history. Wonder Woman, Jill Lepore argues, is the missing link in the history of the struggle for women’s rights–a chain of events that begins with the women’s suffrage campaigns of the early 1900s and ends with the troubled place of feminism a century later.

Keyword

Title
Author
Publisher
Binding