100 Books Like Band of Sisters

This is the gold standard of military memoir written by and about women. Published in 2006, and surrounded by male after male written war memoirs, this is the book that showed me women can write military memoirs, too. It proved to me that our voices matter and people want to hear from us women, as well. It’s powerful, gripping, and poignantly balances on the paradoxical line of the rage women carry towards the Army, but also the love. Filled with humor, camaraderie, as well as the everyday struggles of women in uniform, this is a must-read, penned by an intelligent and extremely accomplished woman.

This incredibly well-researched and powerfully written anthology does the one thing I always want to remind people: that women have always served and fought for our country. Women are usually invisible when it comes to military representation, especially in a historical sense. Either ignored or forgotten, our existence has continuously been minimalized. Bell and Crow’s anthology, with acute detail, tells stories of women who served from the birth of our nation up to modern day. In excerpts from diaries, letters, oral histories, published and unpublished memoirs, generations of women reveal why and how they chose to serve their country, often breaking the social norms, even to great personal peril. An excellent reference guide to get that one, random guy to shut up when he complains “women don’t belong in the military.”    

Helen Benedict’s book chronicles the lives of several women serving in Iraq. It is searing and appropriately disturbing. These are stories told by the women themselves, which range from harassment, rape, or manipulation from fellow soldiers and command to the devastating medical issues and battles with the VA afterward. This collection shows that often women’s greatest enemies in wartime are not on the other side of the gate but instead inside the camp with her. While the book does focus single-mindedly on abuse in the military, there’s no denying that these women’s stories are real, poignant, and deserve to be heard.       

There is a very good reason this book has been adapted into a movie—it tells the very real story of women who circumvent Congressional law to fight alongside Army Rangers, Navy SEALS, and other special operations teams in Afghanistan. Female Engagement Teams (FET) take part in secret missions, under the dark of night, “attached” to special ops and not only proving they can keep up, but they are mission essential. It’s about friendship, loss, the bonds made in war, and a march towards equality, as combat roles weren’t open to women at the time—but these women did it anyway. Great to counter those people want to lavish praise on Rangers, SEALs, or Special Ops because they’re “the best of the best” and “only men.” Surprise! Women do it, too. 

When Lauren Cook and I published They Fought Like Demons, we knew that our book, although groundbreaking, was only the tip of the iceberg in the story of women soldiers in the Civil War, and we always hoped that another scholar would pick up the torch and move the story forward.  Shelby Harriel has done just that.  Behind the Rifle is a meticulously researched and ably written account of the distaff soldiers who hailed from Mississippi, or found themselves there.  Citing previously unknown sources along with revealing newly-located photographs, Harriel’s contribution to the history of women soldiers is remarkable.

This book is an amazing introduction to the Middle East, despite it being written decades ago.

When I first lived in the Middle East, I realized that I had to learn a whole new framework of customs, practices, and expectations if I wanted to fit in. This book is still the best guide to values and practices, despite many changes since it was written.

Newly-married to a graduate student in anthropology at the University of Chicago, Elizabeth Fernea traveled to a Shia Muslim village in faraway Iraq in the mid-1960s. While Bob Fernea sets out to meet the officials in the town and surrounding area, Elizabeth is isolated in a small house, hindered by little local Arabic and being new and foreign as she works to make friends. The most respected and powerful man in the village is the local sheikh. 

Unfortunately, Elizabeth doesn’t know what proper behavior for a… show more.

In many ways, Antonia Fraser's Warrior Queens spurred my long-term interest in women warriors. Fraser not only introduced me to historical women I had never heard of, but to the idea that women had fought as a normal part of the army in far more epochs and far more civilizations than is normally appreciated. Fraser looks at her warring queens as a group as well as individually, trying to understand the tropes that (mostly male) historians have used both to make them bigger than life and to demean them as women. A fascinating read that has held up well over time.

The story of  Shoshana Johnson is one that most people have never heard. In fact, when Johnson was taken as a prisoner of war in Iraq, news outlets initially proclaimed that just four American men had been detained. 

Other women were involved that day in 2003 near Nasiriyah when their supply convoy made a wrong turn. Lori Piestewa was the first Native American female soldier killed on foreign soil. Jessica Lynch was seriously injured, captured by Iraqi soldiers, and finally rescued by U.S. special operations forces. In the meantime, Johnson was taken prisoner after a 22-day ordeal and became the first African-American woman to be a POW.

A single mom, Johnson joined the Army to earn money to attend culinary school. During the battle, she suffered bullet wounds to both ankles. Like Lynch, Johnson received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart for her service in Iraq.

While Lynch’s deeds… show more.

Faith Ringgold, an acclaimed Black artist who grew up in Harlem, tells about her childhood and explains the process of creating her extraordinary painted quilts such as Tar Beach, Sonny’s Quilt, and Dancing at the Louvre. Each tells a story. “When I was starting out,” she wrote, “there were hardly any galleries that showed the work of black women, or women at all.”  Her quilts are now housed in museums and public collections nationwide. Full-color reproductions of her work, as well as vintage photos, illustrate this inspiring book.

If you’re looking for a balanced and warm-hearted ‘cradle to grave’ survey of women’s lives in the past, I think this is the best.

The authors describe the experiences shared by all women, and explain the huge gulf in other areas of life between the worlds of rich and poor. As well as the obvious themes of childhood, courtship, marriage, parenting, and old age, they explore women’s work (both paid and unpaid), their friendships and cultural lives, and their involvement with politics and religion.

And I love the fifty well-chosen illustrations that bring each of these topics to life.