I received an eARC from the publishers through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. It has not affected my opinions.
Genre: non-fiction history
Age Range: Adult
Star Rating: 4 stars
Series: standalone
Blurb:
What if some of the most iconic lives in human history were, for centuries, forgotten?
From the earliest human civilizations through to the present day, the stories of countless influential women – leaders, artists, warriors, scientists and more – have been ignored, forgotten, or actively suppressed. You’ve probably not encountered the likes of Fatima al-Fihri (an Islamic World visionary who founded the world’s first university), Ching Shih (the most successful pirate in history), or Huda Sha’arawi (a pioneering Egyptian feminist leader, suffragette, nationalist, and founder of the Egyptian Feminist Union), but that’s about to change.
In What’s Her Name: A History of the World in 70 Lost Women, authors – and sisters – Olivia Meikle and Katie Nelson weave together the captivating stories of these forgotten figures to tell an alternative, enthralling and deeply researched historical narrative.
A truly global history, What’s Her Name features biographies of incredible women spanning six continents and hundreds of years, from Ancient Egypt and the Roman Empire to imperial China, the Americas and post-war Europe. Drawing on years of study and interviews with dozens of experts, this is a fascinating, thought-provoking look at the trailblazing women you’ve never heard of (but should have).
Blurb taken from Goodreads. Add to your shelves here.
Review:
WHAT’S HER NAME is a rapid fire tour of human history through the eyes of women often overlooked in the record.
As with all global histories (particularly single volume, sub-300 pages ones), the book has to take a whistle-stop tour through history. Hundreds of years will pass in a few pages, jumping country to country to try an give a general sense of what’s going on in that region. This is the standard way (and only way) to approach such an undertaking and WHAT’S HER NAME handles it with casual aplomb.
It covers a fair amount of the world, not just focusing on the West (as can often happen.) I liked that it did bounce between countries to see what was happening in Asia and Africa and South America and the Pacific Islands. So many books promise to be global and then only touch on non-Western countries when the West turns up to invade and conquer.
This is a book that grew out of a podcast and you can tell. There is a very informal style to the writing, like transcriptions from a podcast. It is very colloquial in tone, with “options” for theories (“which one of these reasons do you want to believe?”) and lots of rhetorical questions.
In all, it’s a fun, informative look at global history from a female perspective.
Sifa Elizabeth Reads 