I discovered women's history in college, and it's become a lifelong passion for me. I love uncovering women's history in my own writing, as a reader, and as a history teacher. When we study and read women's history, we see the world in new ways. I studied women's history for my PhD, and my book is all about womanpower in the U.S. military. In this list, I've used a broad definition of "womanpower," considering the various ways in which women have power or come into their power or strength as a person. I find books like these uplifting, and I'm always on the lookout for similar works.
I wrote
Her Cold War: Women in the U.S. Military, 1945-1980
You might have heard of Circe somewhere in school, because she's known for that time when Odysseus (from Homer's The Odyssey) came to her island. Circe could transform men into pigs, so she has a reputation for being a witch. For centuries, we only knew Circe's story as told by men, but here, Circe's voice is the one we hear. Circe narrates the story of her life without holding back. This is a story of a woman coming into her power - both magic and otherwise.
In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. Circe is a strange child - not powerful and terrible, like her father, nor gorgeous and mercenary like her mother. Scorned and rejected, Circe grows up in the shadows, at home in neither the world of gods or mortals. But Circe has a dark power of her own: witchcraft. When her gift…
This book showcases womanpower in two ways. First, it's the story of Martha Ballard, a midwife who lived in the late 1700s and early 1800s in what's now Maine. Like many women, she kept a diary of her daily life. In her (mostly short) entries, she recorded mothers she attended and details about her daily life. Until Dr. Ulrich came along, no one found that remarkable, but Dr. Ulrich approached the diary as no one had before her and uncovered so many rich details that make Ballard's world come to life. This book is incredible not just because of Ballard's story: when doing women's history, it's not always easy to find sources. Dr. Ulrich's book is a master class in how to approach sources in innovative ways.
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • Drawing on the diaries of one woman in eighteenth-century Maine, "A truly talented historian unravels the fascinating life of a community that is so foreign, and yet so similar to our own" (The New York Times Book Review).
Between 1785 and 1812 a midwife and healer named Martha Ballard kept a diary that recorded her arduous work (in 27 years she attended 816 births) as well as her domestic life in Hallowell, Maine. On the basis of that diary, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich gives us an intimate and densely imagined portrait, not only of the industrious and…
Homeless following the death of his adoptive parents in a car crash and the subsequent loss of their farm tenancy, Seb decides to enrol as a residential student at the Asklepios Foundation, a College of Natural Medicine, boasting a sanctuary modelled on an ancient Greek healing temple. Spending a night…
Every time I revisit Little WomenI find something new in this book that radiates womanpower. We always think of Jo and her sisters, and they are the heart of this story, but don't forget about Marmee! Marmee, raising her four daughters alone while her husband is off at war, shows her daughters what it means to be a powerful woman in whatever direction your life takes you. Recent film interpretations have picked up on the threads of womanpower in this story, but go back to the original to see for yourself.
Louisa May Alcott shares the innocence of girlhood in this classic coming of age story about four sisters-Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy.
In picturesque nineteenth-century New England, tomboyish Jo, beautiful Meg, fragile Beth, and romantic Amy are responsible for keeping a home while their father is off to war. At the same time, they must come to terms with their individual personalities-and make the transition from girlhood to womanhood. It can all be quite a challenge. But the March sisters, however different, are nurtured by their wise and beloved Marmee, bound by their love for each other and the…
Just before World War I began, Vera Brittain finally got permission from her father to attend Oxford - then watched as her brother and all his friends went off to serve in the war. Vera left school to volunteer in the war herself, joining the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) as a nurse. Women in the VAD, like Brittain, largely had no medical backgrounds and learned their nursing skills on the job, trying - at times, frantically - to help put back the pieces as they watched the world shatter around them. Brittain's world was never the same, and her autobiography will give you a glimpse of World War I like you've never seen before.
Sea Sagas of the North is about story and transformation.
Story is a simple device common to every human culture. Put simply, the patterns of good story match the shapes of our lives. Story was once tales told at every flickering fireside, the children’s faces upturned and wide-eyed. Now it…
This is the first in a (fiction!) trilogy about Diana Bishop, a historian descended from someone in the Salem Witch Trials - and, as it turns out, a pretty powerful witch in her own right. Author Deborah Harkness is a historian at the University of Southern California, and she draws on that expertise to create a rich world that blends past and present. Here, you'll find witches, vampires, and daemons, but most of all, it's a captivating tale of a woman coming into her own and discovering a world she never imagined. It's about power and knowledge and the ways in which the past shapes our lives.
In this tale of passion and obsession, Diana Bishop, a young scholar and a descendant of witches, discovers a long-lost and enchanted alchemical manuscript, Ashmole 782, deep in Oxford's Bodleian Library. Its reappearance summons a fantastical underworld, which she navigates with her leading man, vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont.
The woman who inspired Don Quixote sets out across the dangerous roads of Spain to honor her dying lover's final plea.
The daughter of a wealthy merchant, young Dolça Llull Prat is besotted with the dashing, bootstrapping Miguel Cervantes from their first meeting. Despite Miguel's entreaties, the ever-practical Dolça, with…
The Golden Promise of Cripple Creek
by
Mary Ellen Johnson,
When her wealthy politician boyfriend dumps her, disgraced social media influencer Maeve Mooney retreats to her family ranch—only to tumble down an abandoned mine shaft and straight into 1901 Cripple Creek, Colorado.
It's a world of glittering wealth, gritty saloons, and ongoing tensions between miners and powerful mine owners. Using…
