Page 93 - All About History - Issue 70-18

Women who
changed the world

Book TV Podcast poetry, and politics. Women have
Science, mathematics, art,
excelled in these fields – and so
many more – despite the barriers
they’ve had to overcome. Many of
Film Games Other these disciplines have been either
completely closed to women, or so
male-dominated that even being
heard can be laborious. Queens Out
regnant have had to defy the now!
Reviews by stereotypical trappings of
Jessica Leggett, Robert Lock, Katharine Marsh, Jack Parsons, Beth Wyatt
gender, or wrest power from
grasping statesmen to rule their countries and empires. From
Harriet Tubman to Frida Kahlo, Cleopatra to Marie Curie,
History’s Greatest Women collects together the stories of
inspirational women from around the world, revealing
the challenges they faced, the accomplishments they
KING EDWARD VIII achieved, and adventures they went on.

Buy History’s Greatest Women
in shops or online at
A fresh perspective on how an American myfavouritemagazines.com
Price: £9.99
adventure shaped the royal rebel

Author Ted Powell Publisher Oxford University Press
Price £25 Released Out now reign, and his decision to abdicate. Through private
E after he abdicated the British throne in 1936. correspondence and previously unseen sources,
famously spent his life abroad
dward VIII

However,
while the Duke
of Windsor’s exile
Powell makes a compelling case for Edward being
his wife, the American
torn between his obligations to the crown and his
with
Wallis
divorcee
documented, Ted Powell’s
is
well
new
Simpson,
The author explicitly claims
biography showcases Edward’s hitherto overlooked adoration for the American Dream. Edward VIII: An
King
early odyssey in the United States. American Life counters the established view he was
King Edward VIII: An American Life explores how a shallow, pleasure-seeking Nazi sympathiser, which
as a young Prince of Wales, Edward surfed in Hawaii, might be a stretch. Edward’s regrets about visiting
partied in New York, hobnobbed with Hollywood Hitler’s Germany are detailed, but fears that he was
stars, and even learned to perform lasso tricks from mixed up (knowingly or otherwise) in Nazi plots –
a cowboy. While newspapers from Boston to San shared on both sides of the Atlantic, by Churchill and
Francisco recorded it at the time, the revelation that Roosevelt – are ignored.
Edward had torrid affairs with American women Though Powell carefully avoids
before he met Wallis may well shock British readers. framing Edward and Wallis’s
However, Powell is no monarchical mud-racker, marriage as a Cinderella story, this
Regal,
sharing Jazz Age gossip simply for salacious thrills. remains too romantic a royal Revealing,
The royal historian documents all this to offer a portrait to be the definitive word Romantic
fresh perspective on Edward’s character, his brief on the controversial king. JP

THE SILK ROADS ILLUSTRATED

This picture book offers a more well-rounded

approach to global history

Author Peter Frankopan Publisher Bloomsbury Price £17 Released Out now
F from a Western perspective. Modern Europe Europe, the World Wars and present-day politics.
or the longest time world history was written
to Genghis Khan’s terrifying huns, the rise of

Peter
Keen
that
was regarded as the heirs to the mighty
readers may remember
turn
heirs of the
were
Frankopan put out a hardback history called
Romans, who in
intellectual Greeks. If the Greeks’ roots were
However, this abridged version is aimed at younger
traced back to Ancient Egypt it only cemented The Silk Roads in 2015, covering the same topic.
the view that the Mediterranean was the cradle of readers. Frankopan takes time to explain famous
civilisation. While no serious historians of the last figures and concepts they might be unfamiliar
30 years believe it was that simple, this traditional with, while chapters remain concise enough for
view is still taught in schools as a foundation for short attention spans.
introducing the subject. As its title suggest The Silk Roads Illustrated
The Silk Roads Illustrated is here to put that right. is also accompanied by beautiful artwork
Written by the professor of global history at Oxford from Neil Packer. Intricately detailed
University, it traces the links between East and maps, as well as vivid scenes
West, showing how people, trade, religion, science, imagining everything from the
Spectacular,
conflict and even disease have travelled back and building of Baghdad to the Thorough,
forth, influencing cultures on either side. This trenches of Normandy, bring Immersive
RL
ranges from the ancient laws of King Hammurabi, the book to life.

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