Daredevil...Trailblazing...Mischievous...Revolutionary...Legends. Words used to describe the women in history discussed in the books on this list, from the titles of the books themselves. The history of women is as vast, compelling, and diverse as the history of men, but most of those stories are just now being told, with many more to come. Take the opportunity this month to learn more of those stories. Discover all the women we never knew were our heroes.
Jenn M. Jackson, PhD, has been known to bring historical acuity to some of the most controversial topics in America today. Now, in their first book, Jackson applies their critical analysis to the questions that have long energized their…
Book of Queens reaches back centuries to the Persian Empire and a woman disguised as a man, facing an invading army, protected only by light armor and the stallion she sat astride. Mahdavi draws a thread from past to present: from her…
The Girl Group Sound, made famous and unforgettable by acts like The Ronettes, The Shirelles, The Supremes, and The Vandellas, took over the airwaves by capturing the mix of innocence and rebellion emblematic of America in in the 1960s. As…
From the colonial through the antebellum era, enslaved women in the U.S. used lethal force as the ultimate form of resistance. By amplifying their voices and experiences, Brooding over Bloody Revenge strongly challenges assumptions that…
Perfect for readers of A Woman of No Importance, Three Ordinary Girls, and Eleanor: A Life comes the first-ever biography of Anna Marie Rosenberg, the Hungarian Jewish immigrant who became FDR's closest advisor during World War II and,…
The astonishing story of Dr. Josephine Janina Mehlberg— a Jewish mathematician who saved thousands of lives in Nazi-occupied Poland by masquerading as a Polish aristocrat— drawing on Mehlberg's own unpublished memoir. World War II and the…
In the 1960s, the world's attention was focused on a nail-biting race against time— an international campaign to save over a dozen ancient Egyptian temples, built during the height of the pharaohs' rule, from drowning in the floodwaters of…
In 1999, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology admitted to discriminating against its most senior female scientists. It was a seismic cultural event— one that forced institutions across the nation to reckon with the bias faced by girls…
A historical thriller by the Pulitzer and National Book Award-winning author that tells the riveting story of the Klan's rise to power in the 1920s, the cunning con man who drove that rise, and the woman who stopped them. The Roaring…
From corsets to crime fighting , Mae Foley challenged the patriarchal status quo by not only juggling family life, but also by forming the first female auxiliary police force in the City That Never Sleeps. After the 19th Amendment passed…
This book tells the stories of women physicists from around the world who transformed science. Many of them discovered invisible objects in the universe, and all wore a cloak of invisibility throughout their careers. Their remarkable…
Plunge into the intimate history of cosmetics, and discover how, for centuries, women have turned to make-up as a rich source of creativity, community and resistance. The Renaissance was an era obsessed with appearances. And beauty culture…
This lavishly illustrated book by Lisa Perrin introduces more than 25 infamous women poisoners, exploring the circumstances and skill sets that led them to lives of crime. Learn about popular poisons throughout history and their deadly…
The nineteenth century was a transformative period in the history of American science, as scientific study, once the domain of armchair enthusiasts and amateurs, became the purview of professional experts and institutions. In Mischievous…
Did you know that there are more penises than women in the Bayeux Tapestry? That the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 was started and propelled by women who were protesting a tax on women? Or that celebrated naturalist Charles Darwin believed not…
A vibrant and illuminating exploration of medieval thinking on women's beauty, sexuality, and behavior. What makes for the ideal woman? How should she look, love, and be? In this vibrant, high-spirited history, medievalist Eleanor Janega…
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…
A remarkable work about women writers in the Renaissance explodes our notion of the Shakespearean period and brings us in close to four women who were committed to their craft before there was any possibility of "a room of one's own." In a…
The Tigerbelles tells the epic story of the 1960 Tennessee State University all-Black women's track team, which found Olympic glory at the 1960 games in Rome. The author tells a story of desire, success and failure— of beating the odds—…
From the adolescent thrill of getting a driver's license to the dreaded commutes of adulthood, from vintage muscle cars to electric vehicles, this groundbreaking book reveals the outsized impact the car has had—and will continue to have—on…
