A New History of the Ancient World Through the Women Who Shaped It.

I am so conflicted about this book.

The theory: absolutely up my alley. Writing women back into the (hi)story they were always a part of? Of course that’s a good idea!

And yet… I can’t help but feel this book isn’t quite the right way to do it.

Some of the good things first:

It is great to have women like Atossa and others who get one line as a wife or a mother brought to the forefront. Discussing Fulvia and Octavia a lot when discussing Marc Antony and Octavian? Brilliant! Not to mention Olympias when you’re discussing Phillip and Alexander of Macedon. There’s a nice amount about women like Sappho, too, so it’s not just all fighting – and the book opens with what we might be able to understand about Minoan culture, which probably had important roles for women, so that’s also excellent.

And yet. I have reservations.

One issue is that it’s still trying to tell exactly the same story of battles and political intrigue, just with women in it. Sometimes the women feel shoehorned in – this is a story the author wants to tell, and has to fit in the women to justify the story. So that’s frustrating. Partly this is a result of my own expectations: I was hoping for some new stories, making “history” not just about battles.

A large part of my problem is that the author doesn’t make much attempt to differentiate hearsay, calumny, and verifiable stories. There’s occasionally a gesture at that – “oh, these words were used to make the woman / man associated with the woman look bad” – but it’s usually after the story has been presented as legit. And sometimes the stories are just presented as fact: Cleopatra in the rug to sneak into Caesar’s room, for example. So in some instances, the worst stories about women’s roles are blithely repeated.

And then there’s the fact that this is presented as a history “of the ancient world.” Which, to me, suggests “of the world.” The occasional reference to China – with no context at all – does not make a global history. This is a history “of the Classical world” with very occasional reference to things in “the Near East” and about three sentences about China. Which would be fine if the book had made it obvious that’s what it was doing.

So. Yes. I am disappointed. As someone with knowledge of most of the general stuff discussed in the book, I could contextualise what was being presented and it did indeed give me info about women’s actions I hadn’t come across before. But I would not give this to someone with no prior knowledge.