A fascinating history of female rulers across time and across the world
Female kings have always been a rarity, an oddity, or an undesirable outcome. In almost all places on the globe a male ruler was preferred to a woman, with female inheritance vanishingly rare and frequently disputed. In spite of this, women have secured crowns-or fought for them-over several millennia.
This scintillating book tell the story of the female kings: women who risked everything, sometimes unwillingly, to find a place in a man's world. Women Who Ruled the World covers an exhilarating expanse of time and space: from the lush oases of Ancient Egypt to the cherry blossomed islands of Japan, from the nineteenth-century Queens of Madagascar who defied French attempts to colonize them to Tamar the Great, who presided over a golden age in Georgia. From the familiar-Boudicca, Cleopatra, Catherine to Great-to the unfamiliar-Urracca of Castile and Leon, Kushite queen Shanakdakhete, Lili'uokalani of Hawaii.
This groundbreaking book casts a global eye over five millennia of queenship, a truly remarkable feat of historical skill and breadth of knowledge.
