Showing titles in Women

Women in the War beautifully weaves together the oral histories of 10 remarkable women who dedicated their young adulthood to the war effort. From aiding codebreaking at Bletchley Park to plotting the Battle of the Atlantic and working alongside Churchill in the War Rooms below Whitehall, these are the women who helped to defend the Home Front and kept Britain going. Now with the wisdom of age, they look back at how they coped with danger, trauma and stress, and tell how their spirits were fortified by friendship, fellowship and romance.

A quippy and irreverent collection of illustrated profiles of the great American women who weren’t attractive, well-spoken, demure, or sinless enough to receive their rightful place in history, until now, from New York Times bestselling author Therese Oneill. Slut. Shrew. Sinful. Scold. The...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE PLUTARCH AWARD FOR BEST BIOGRAPHY WINNER OF THE ASJA AWARD FOR BIOGRAPHY/HISTORY A riveting history about the little-known rivalry between Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett that profoundly shaped reproductive rights in America In the 1910s, as the birth control movement...

Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women is the story of Brooks’ intrepid journey toward an understanding of the women behind the veils, and of the often contradictory political, religious, and cultural forces that shape their lives. In fundamentalist Iran, Brooks finagles an invitation to tea with the ayatollah’s widow—and discovers that Mrs. Khomeini dyes her hair.

The imprisonment and execution of Queen Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second wife, in 1536 was unprecedented in English history and never before has there been a book devoted entirely to her fall. But here Alison Weir has reassessed the evidence and created a richly researched and detailed portrait of the last days of one of the most influential and important figures in English history.

Set against the backdrop of the turbulent 13th century, a time of chivalry and crusades, poetry, knights, and monarchs, comes the story of the four beautiful daughters of the count of Provence, whose brilliant marriages made them the queens of France, England, Germany, and Sicily.

For more than a century, Dr. J. Marion Sims was hailed as the “father of modern gynecology.” He founded a hospital in New York City and had a profitable career treating gentry and royalty in Europe, becoming one of the world’s first celebrity surgeons. Statues were built in his honor, but he wasn’t the hero he had made himself appear to be. Sims’s greatest medical claim was the result of several years of experimental surgeries—without anesthesia—on a young enslaved woman known as Anarcha; his so-called cure for obstetric fistula forever altered the path of women’s health.

A reporter and abortion access correspondent investigates the secret killers and hidden motives behind the death of abortion rights. They are going to kill people, investigative reporter for The Nation Amy Littlefield knew, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. After a decade covering...

The only woman ever awarded the Medal of Honor. A battlefield surgeon. A women’s rights advocate. A rebel who redefined what it meant to be a patriot. This is the extraordinary true story of Dr. Mary Edwards Walker. In the midst of the American Civil War, Dr. Mary E. Walker shattered barriers as the first female surgeon contracted by the U.S. Army. She operated on wounded soldiers near the front lines, crossed enemy territory to aid civilians, and endured months as a Confederate prisoner of war. For her bravery, she was awarded the Medal of Honor—making her the only woman in American ...

Few women of the American Revolution have come through 250 years of US history with such clarity and color as Angelica Schuyler Church. She was Alexander Hamilton's "saucy" sister-in-law, and the heart of Thomas Jefferson's "charming coterie" of artists and salonnières in Paris. Her transatlantic network of important friends spanned the political spectrum of her time and place, and her astute eye and brilliant letters kept them well informed.

Reflective and expansive, Mirror in the Sky situates Stevie Nicks as one of the finest songwriters of the twentieth century. This biography from distinguished music historian Simon Morrison examines Nicks as a singer and songwriter before and beyond her career with Fleetwood Mac, from the Arizona landscape of her childhood to the strobe-lit Night of 1000 Stevies celebrations.

Transcendentalism remains the most important literary and philosophical movement to have originated in the United States. Most accounts of it trace its emergence to a group of intellectuals dissatisfied with their religious, literary, and social culture. Yet there is a forgotten history of transcendentalism that features women who were central to the development of the movement. Bright Circle is intended to reorient our understanding of transcendentalism. It recounts the lives of Mary Moody Emerson, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, Lydia Jackson Emerson, and Margaret Fuller.

Six-time New York Times bestselling author and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright—one of the world’s most admired and tireless public servants—reflects on the final stages of one’s career, and working productively into your later decades in this revealing, funny, and inspiring...

Contrary to the familiar story, medication did not improve during the Scientific Revolution. Yet somehow, between 1650 and 1740, the domestic female and the physician switched places in the cultural consciousness: she became the ineffective, potentially dangerous quack, he the knowledgeable, trustworthy expert.

A groundbreaking exploration of a debilitating disorder that’s underdiagnosed and misunderstood. Most days, Shalene Gupta was the person she’d always aspired to be. She was hardworking, excelled at work, and had a long-term boyfriend who she desperately loved. Then, every month like...

A powerful chronicle of the women who used their sewing skills to survive the Holocaust, stitching beautiful clothes at an extraordinary fashion workshop created within one of the most notorious WWII death camps. At the height of the Holocaust twenty-five young inmates of the infamous...

The Tudor period conjures up images of queens and noblewomen in elaborate court dress, of palace intrigue and dramatic politics. But if you were a woman, it was also a time when death during childbirth was rife, when marriage was usually a legal contract, not a matter for love, and the education you could hope to receive was minimal at best. Yet the Tudor century was also dominated by powerful and dynamic women in a way that no era had been before.

Winner of the 2025 Audie Award for History/Biography Includes an exclusive audio postscript featuring archival recordings of the voices of the Roosevelts, including Theodore (one of the first US presidents to have his voice captured on audio), Eleanor, Edith, Corinne, and Alice. An “elegant...

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.

The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things offers a startlingly original look at the revered writer through a variety of key moments, scenes, and objects in her life and work. Going beyond previous traditional biographies which have traced Austen’s daily life from Steventon to Bath to...