Ebook Women Warriors An Unexpected History Audible Audio Edition Pamela D Toler Rosemary Benson Random House Audio Books

Product details Audible Audiobook Listening Length 9 hours and 48 minutes Program Type Audiobook Version Unabridged Publisher Random House Audio Audible.com Release Date February 26, 2019 Language English, English ASIN B07N8C3WQ1

Women Warriors An Unexpected History Audible Audio Edition Pamela D Toler Rosemary Benson Random House Audio Books Reviews

• I LOVED this book. I found it smart without being intimidating or cumbersome. I learned so much, but it was as if Pamela Toler was sitting across the table from me just entertaining me with stories. I only read a few each evening to make the book last longer and so I could have time to think about the stories, and sometimes I looked up the woman or the war or her tribe or country. Sometimes I read the footnotes to a particular story and sometimes I didn't, depending on how much connection I felt to the woman and her story. It's a rich feast and you don't have to feel that you have to "study" it or read it in a certain way. Just enjoy!
• I don't usually give a review, but I couldn't let anyone hoping to learn about 'women warrior's to waste their money on this. The writing is so disjointed and fragmented it is difficult to know at times what she is even saying. The footnotes could make another book. The woman she lists are rarely mentioned. Don't bother.
• This is a wonderful work of history, written to be accessible to a wide range of readers and packed with fascinating people you've probably never heard of but really should know.
• I admit, when I ordered this book, I was just expecting a collection of easy to read biographies of "women warriors" like Joan of Arc. Something typically written for teenage/young girls to show them "You can do whatever you want to do!"
  
  This is not that book. (And it made me chuckle in the introduction when the author flat out states that most books about women warriors is a selection of biographies written for young girls and this is not that book.)
  
  Happily, it is a much more interesting and in depth book on women's history in war, battles, sieges, etc. through history. It is written as an academic text in a sociological, anthropological, women's studies vein, though it is very accessible to lay people. The book is divided into chapters about different aspects of women in war, women's role in war in relation to their families (either children or parents or husbands), women leading battles, woman manning the ramparts/holding the fort during a siege. After an introduction in the chapter about about the broader theme, Toler provides three case studies of women warriors that make her case. The cases are quite diverse both in historical eras, race, ethnicity, wealth, etc.
  
  I enjoyed this book a lot. I liked that it is written in a academic style, providing analysis on the general themes, examining the women's actions in relation to traditional gender roles at the time (and sometimes how men get caught up in these fights because the person on the other side is "just a woman"), in addition to providing interesting biographies on many fascinating and not terribly famous woman. She also discusses why these women aren't well known, often noting that history is often written by men and it is often shameful to lose to a woman. Of course there are other cases, where the woman becomes historically celebrated or a national heroine (Boudica, Joan of Arc, Artemisia) used as a symbol in later fights (often for independence from a colonial power.)
  
  One thing I really liked about this book is that Toler doesn't sugar coat the brutal actions some of the women take, from turning skulls into wine goblets or being willing to let the enemies kill their children (in one case, when the enemies threatened to kill her child if she didn't surrender, one woman pulled up her skirt and pointed and said she could always make more. Not quite the maternal snuggliness we expect from women.)
  
  One minor annoyance I had was the number of footnotes. There are tons of them and they are long and I found it disruptive to the prose to constantly be looking at the bottom of the page and reading something else. Of course on the bright side, I don't normally read footnotes, but Toler's were very interesting and occasionally humorous (she has a dry wit) so I always checked out the notes but then would have to jump back and try to re-find my place. I go back and forth wishing they were end notes (which I definitely wouldn't read) to wishing maybe she just scaled back on the number. It's just a personal preference, I guess.
  
  Overall, an interesting, well written, grown up book on women in combat/war. I gladly recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about women warriors (and not just simplified biographies to boost girls' self-esteem.)
• Do you look at the military in the United States and think about how many women are within the ranks? The fighters who patrol the areas at war and that new Seal Team recruit.? Are women fighting a new thing in our armed forces a new thing? "Not so", says historian Pamela Toler. Toler, whose new book, "Women Warriors An Unexpected History", is a look at women through history who have fought for their countries, both under-cover and in the open. Women have actually fought in battles at the sides of their husbands and sons and in defense of their cities under siege.
  
  Pamela Toler's book does not have to read all in one sitting. In fact, her individual chapters on women-in-history are best read on their own. She writes about women we all know about - Joan of Arc, for instance - and those lesser known women who fought in Asia and Africa. Her writing is lively, as befits someone with her own historical website can write to engage the reader. I also like the fact that the footnotes are in the text, as opposed to being at the end of the book.
  
  Will "Women Warriors" appeal to the average reader? I think so; Toler seems to write "popular history" with a flair, making the history given an easy accessibility not often found in more scholarly works. And if you're looking for a good work of fiction about women at war, pick up Rita Mae Brown's delightful novel, "High Hearts" about a woman who disguises herself as a man to fight aside her husband in the Civil War.