Showing titles in Women

There was a time when women’s health was repressed and breast cancer wasn’t discussed, but Shirley Temple Black, Rose Kushner, and Evelyn Lauder refused to be silenced. Their courage ignited a movement that changed the way society addresses breast cancer. When these “radical sisters” were diagnosed, they faced a medical world of myths, outdated protocols, and a shocking lack of research. Breast cancer awareness was absent, and treatment options were scarce. Yet, Shirley, Rose, and Evelyn became trailblazing advocates for breast cancer research, early detection, and women’s health.

The dangerous belief that granting women reproductive freedom poses a threat to "traditional" values is a myth that has long prospered in American politics, playing an especially vicious role in the development of totalitarianism in the West. How did such damaging ideas arise? In Reproductive Wrongs, acclaimed translator and cultural historian Sarah Ruden exposes how ideologies that oppress women and families in the service of power took hold.

During the bleak winter of 1692 in the rigid Puritan community of Salem Village, Massachusetts, a group of young girls began experiencing violent fits, allegedly tormented by Satan and the witches who worshipped him. From the girls' initial denouncing of an Indian slave, the accusations soon multiplied. In less than two years, 19 men and women were hanged, one was pressed to death, and over a hundred others were imprisoned and impoverished. This evenhanded and now-classic history illuminates the horrifying episode with visceral clarity.

From the New York Times best-selling journalist, the staggering, hidden story of an unlikely band of mothers who discovered the deadly secret of Love Canal, and exposed one of America’s most devastating environmental disasters. Lois Gibbs, Luella Kenny, and other mothers loved their...

In the first-ever history of the world's female buccaneers, Pirate Women: the Princesses, Prostitutes, and Privateers Who Ruled the Seven Seas tells the story of women, both real and legendary, who through the ages sailed alongside - and sometimes in command of - their male counterparts. These women came from all walks of life but had one thing in common: a desire for freedom.

Mary "Mae" Foley was a force to be reckoned with. On one hip she held her makeup compact, on the other, her NYPD badge. When women were fighting for the vote, Mae was fighting crime in the heart of New York City—taking down rapists, bootleggers, Nazis, and serial killers. One of the first women to be sworn into the police force, Mae not only fought crime in the city that never sleeps, but also did something much bigger—challenged the patriarchal systems that continually tried to shut her and other women down.

A New Yorker Best Book of 2025 An NPR Book We Love 2025 A History Best Book of 2025 A Smithsonian Magazine Best History Book of 2025 A New Yorker Best Book of the Year So Far A New York Times Editors' Choice CBS Sunday Morning Summer Book Report Pick New York Times...

Extensively researched and told through alternating fiction and nonfiction chapters, this book illuminates a shocking truth: contrary to popular opinion, the witch hunts never ended. Alice shares research that suggests tens of thousands of witch hunt-related deaths have happened all over the world in the last thirty years. The Once & Future Witch Hunt also features tantalizing glimpses into Alice's ancestors' lives and reimagines the trials through fact-based fiction.

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.

This is the first biography to tell the fascinating story of Eva Palmer Sikelianos (1874-1952), an American actor, director, composer, and weaver best known for reviving the Delphic Festivals. Yet, as Artemis Leontis reveals, Palmer’s most spectacular performance was her daily revival of ancient Greek life. For almost half a century, dressed in handmade Greek tunics and sandals, she sought to make modern life freer and more beautiful through a creative engagement with the ancients. Along the way, she crossed paths with other seminal modern artists.

A fun and feminist look at forgotten women in science, technology, and beyond, from the bestselling author of THE FANGIRL'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY You may think you know women’s history pretty well. But have you ever heard of. . . · Alice Ball, the chemist who developed an effective...

Women have bravely served in the US Navy for nearly a century, but they have been allowed to serve in combat roles for only the last 25 years. When the combat exclusion law was lifted in 1993, women in the navy soon had a new range of opportunities available to them. The repeal of the law finally gave women the chance to serve on combatant ships for the first time. Among the first women to step onto these warships as a new crewmember was Joanna Sprtel Walters.

Meet the unsung sheroes of history: the diverse, defiant and daring (wo)men who changed the rules, and their identities, to get sh*t done. A call to action for the modern world, this book celebrates the #GenderRebels who paved the way for women everywhere to be soldiers and spies; kings and queens; firefighters, doctors, pilots; and a Swiss Army knife’s-worth more. These superbly spirited (wo)men all had one thing in common: they defied the rules to progress in a man’s world.

A collection of riveting, inspiring, and stereotype-shattering stories that reveal the beauty, diversity, and strength of Muslim women both past and present. Tired of seeing Muslim women portrayed as weak, sheltered, and limited, journalist Seema Yasmin reframes how the world sees them, to...

The names of few medieval monarchs and their queens are better known than Eleanor of Aquitaine, uniquely queen of France and queen of England, and her second husband Henry II. Although academically labeled "medieval," their era was the violent transition from the Dark Ages, when countries' borders were defined with fire and sword. If princes fought for their succession to crowns, the princesses were traded—usually by their mothers—to strangers for political power without the bloodshed.

In the late 1960s and 1970s, the lesbian feminist movement and the no-fault divorce revolution transformed the lives of wives who desired women. Women could now choose to divorce their husbands in order to lead openly lesbian or bisexual lives; increasingly, however, these women were confronted by hostile state discrimination, typically in legal battles over child custody. Well into the 1980s, many women remained ambivalent about divorce and resistant to labeling themselves as lesbian, therefore complicating a simple interpretation of their lives and relationship choices.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the groundbreaking backstairs look at the White House, The Residence, comes an intimate, news-making look at the true modern power brokers at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: the First Ladies, from Jackie Kennedy to Michelle Obama. One of the most...

Remembering Anne Beach pulls back the veil on the challenges of research, the problems of gaps in archives, and the long process involved in constructing historical narratives. Through the tragic tale of an ill-fated couple and their disapproving families, this microhistory explores not only forbidden love but also marriage, illness, death, disability, and scandal in eighteenth-century society.

Dive into the world of Norse legends and uncover the extraordinary life of Lagertha, the legendary shieldmaiden whose tale defies the conventions of her time. In "Lagertha," journey through the sagas and historical narratives that bring to life the fierce warrior known for her unparalleled bravery, strategic prowess, and indomitable spirit.

In the spring of 1790 two of the most gifted artists in Europe met in Rome and became fast friends, sharing their views on art, visiting the city’s ancient sites and making trips to the opera together. The Swiss history painter Angelica Kauffman and the French portraitist Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun are no longer household names in the early twenty-first century but were much-fêted celebrities in the late eighteenth. Franny Moyle uses their meeting in the eternal city as the point of departure for a lavishly illustrated 'life and times’ biography of two brilliant but neglected women artists.