Women

In January 1889, Louisa Collins, a mother of 10 children, became the first woman hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol and the last woman hanged in New South Wales. Both of Louisa's husbands had died suddenly and the Crown, convinced that Louisa poisoned them with arsenic, put her on trial....

Let Sandi Toksvig guide you on an eclectic meander through the calendar, illuminating neglected corners of history to tell tales of the fascinating figures you didn't learn about at school....

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.....

The harrowing, dramatic and profoundly moving story of the Australian and New Zealand nurses who served in the Great War....

Women including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Margaret Sanger, and Sheryl Sandberg are commonly celebrated as leaders of feminism. Yet they have fought for the few, not the many. As Kyla Schuller argues, their White feminist politics dispossess the most marginalized to liberate themselves....

This radical book examines the historical formation of Catholic theology from the perspective of the spiritual abuse of women. Debra Flint defines spiritual and political power abuse before considering female influence in the Church from New Testament times to date.

Women have always gardened, but our stories have been buried with our work....

In her first book, popular TikTok historian J Draper uses her characteristic wit and intellect to introduce us to extraordinary figures marginalized by history, and the lessons we can learn from them.

A riveting and stylish saga set in Paris during World War II, The Art Spy uncovers how an unlikely heroine infiltrated the Nazi leadership to save the world's most treasured masterpieces.

What happened to Dorothy Arnold? One moment she was walking through New York City’s bustling streets, and the next—she vanished without a trace.

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.

At her execution Mary, Queen of Scots wore red. Widely known as the colour of strength and passion, it was in fact worn by Mary as the Catholic symbol of martyrdom....

A vibrant and illuminating exploration of medieval thinking on women's beauty, sexuality, and behavior....

Sex workers in 19th-century Melbourne were judged morally corrupt by the respectable world around them. But theirs was a thriving trade, with links to the police and political leaders of the day, and the leading brothels were usually managed by women....

Goddess with a Thousand Faces blends historical research with mythological retelling, taking an inspirational, enlightening and fiercely feminist deep dive into ancient goddesses to explore the modern concept of femininity....

In this electrifying exposé, Hayley Nolan explores for the first time the full, uncensored evidence of Anne Boleyn’s life and relationship with Henry VIII, revealing the shocking suppression of a powerful woman....

A groundbreaking history of women in British intelligence, Women in Intelligence reveals their pivotal role across the first half of the twentieth century....

Sisters in Captivity is the incredible account of Sister Betty Jeffrey OAM and the Australian war nurses who survived the bombing of hospital ship SS Vyner Brooke in February 1942, and subsequently spent three years in Japanese prison camps in Sumatra....

This riveting narrative explores the lives of six remarkable female pharaohs, from Hatshepsut to Cleopatra - women who ruled with real power - and shines a piercing light on our own perceptions of women in power today....

Jonathan Clements weighs the evidence of Empress Wu Zetian's life and legacy: so charismatic that she could rise from nothing to the height of medieval power, so hated that her own children left her tombstone blank.

The gripping, true, and untold history of the Italian anti-fascist resistance during World War II, told through the stories of four spectacularly courageous women fighters.

Hillary Rodham Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea, share the stories of the gutsy women who have inspired them - women with the courage to stand up to the status quo, ask hard questions, and get the job done.....

Based on Mackenzi Lee's popular weekly Twitter series of the same name, Bygone Badass Broads features 52 remarkable and forgotten trailblazing women from all over the world....

At the height of the Great Depression, Sam Babb, the charismatic basketball coach of tiny Oklahoma Presbyterian College, began dreaming....

Take a tour of the past and uncover stories of the women whose lives and achievements have shaped our modern world. In Life Lessons from Historical Women, Eleanor Morton celebrates the ordinary women whose decisions and accomplishments in their everyday lives resonate with us today.

Maria Theresa was the single most powerful woman in eighteenth-century Europe. At the age of just twenty-three she succeeded to the Habsburg domains only to find them contested by almost every power in Europe. In this engrossing biography, Richard Bassett traces Maria Theresa's life and complex legacy. Drawing on hitherto unpublished sources, Bassett reveals her keen sense of moderation and tolerance, innovative ideas on free trade and finance, and studied reluctance to resort to policies of territorial expansion.

On August 25, 1944, Rose Valland, a woman of quiet daring, found herself in a desperate position. From the windows of her beloved Jeu de Paume museum, where she had worked and ultimately spied, she could see the battle to liberate Paris thundering around her. The Jeu de Paume, co-opted by Nazi leadership, was now the Germans’ final line of defense. Would the museum curator be killed before she could tell the truth—a story that would mean nothing less than saving humanity’s cultural inheritance?

From underground soldiers to intrepid spies, Women of War unearths the hidden history of the brave women who risked their lives to overthrow the Nazi occupation and liberate Italy. Using primary sources and brand new scholarship, historian Suzanne Cope illuminates the roles played by women while Italians struggled under dual foes: Nazi invaders and Italian fascist loyalists.

The daughter of Irish immigrants, Margaret Heckler represented the American dream. She served as a congresswoman, a presidential cabinet secretary, and an ambassador—all groundbreaking achievements for a woman of her era. The fiery Irish Republican (R-MA) mastered the seemingly unbeatable game of being a woman in a man's world and a Republican in a Democratic state, becoming a champion for others against all odds.

Women's accomplishments across history are showcased as aberrations or surprising facts. Little thought is often given to the reasons why most of our lauded scientists, reporters, sports stars, politicians, and businesspeople all seem to be men. Uncredited proves that not only have there been hundreds of ground-breaking women in all professions, but that their accomplishments have been overlooked, denigrated, or downright repressed by their male colleagues or historians.