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A review by elementarymydear
What's Her Name: A History of the World in 80 Lost Women by Olivia Meikle, Katie Nelson
4.0
The ‘women’s history listicle’ is a strangely specific book category, but there have been more and more examples in recent years. It’s a solid concept for a book: write a number of short essays on various female historical figures, stick them in chronological order, voila! I’ve read many of these books, and I’m confident in saying that this is one of the best.
Rather than presenting the various women included as unrelated figures, this book tells a narrative of the whole of human history through the eyes of these women. You can visualise the camera zooming in and out of different parts of the world as we travel through history via 80 different case studies.
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With that in mind, I was particularly impressed by the diversity of the women featured. A very clear effort was made to explore all corners of the globe, and examine how life and expectations for women around the world varied.
In many cases not much was known about the women featured, and I really liked how the authors embraced speculation and the unknown. It was always clear where the evidence for each woman’s life ran dry, and the various fates speculated varied from the likely to the absurd, often with a tongue-in-cheek outlook on history. The tone was often light-hearted, and reminded me a lot of Horrible Histories – just for adults!
This is a welcome addition to any women’s history shelf, celebrating the ordinary and the extraordinary in equal measure.
I received a free copy for an honest review.
Rather than presenting the various women included as unrelated figures, this book tells a narrative of the whole of human history through the eyes of these women. You can visualise the camera zooming in and out of different parts of the world as we travel through history via 80 different case studies.
📚Blog📖YouTube📖Instagram📚
With that in mind, I was particularly impressed by the diversity of the women featured. A very clear effort was made to explore all corners of the globe, and examine how life and expectations for women around the world varied.
In many cases not much was known about the women featured, and I really liked how the authors embraced speculation and the unknown. It was always clear where the evidence for each woman’s life ran dry, and the various fates speculated varied from the likely to the absurd, often with a tongue-in-cheek outlook on history. The tone was often light-hearted, and reminded me a lot of Horrible Histories – just for adults!
This is a welcome addition to any women’s history shelf, celebrating the ordinary and the extraordinary in equal measure.
I received a free copy for an honest review.