A sweeping history thrumming with energy.
Ancient history through the lens of unheralded women of power.
Drawing on literary and archaeological sources, classicist Dunn, author of The Shadow of Vesuvius, examines women’s roles in the classical world, revealing their involvement in social, business, political, and religious life over a span of 3,000 years. From Minoan Crete to Nero’s Rome, women were bakers and weavers, poets and artisans; some were financially independent business leaders, managing estates, workshops, and stock. Others solidified political alliances through marriages, led armies, and wielded weapons. Artemisia, for one, was “the sole female commander on either side of the Graeco-Persian wars.” Women’s reputations spread beyond borders: The women of Lesbos and Lydia were famously beautiful, with the exception, apparently, of the poet Sappho; Etruscan women were notoriously brazen and sexually daring. The strength and stature of Scythian women made them “real-life inspiration for the mythical Amazons.” Dunn’s deft sleuthing uncovers long-overlooked realities. For example, in Minoan artwork, the centrality of women’s images has led some historians to describe Minoan society as matriarchal or matrilineal. Mycenaean women shown on clay tablets similarly attest to women’s multiplicity of roles, while Mycenaean men “were sometimes described on tablets as being the offspring of women of particular crafts.” Yet women were victims of rape, enslavement, and certainly of fierce patriarchy. Barred from Olympic Games—thrown off a cliff if they disobeyed—every four years they were allowed to compete in a women’s footrace. Wars, rivalries, and invasions made women central to political alliances, and Dunn details their adept machinations as they moved boldly or plotted secretly. Besides familiar names, such as Cleopatra, Fulvia, and Lucretia, the author introduces scores more of prodigious prowess and influence: Gorgo of Sparta, Atossa, and poet Enheduanna, among many others. Her erudition is impressive, and her narrative is consistently animated.
A sweeping history thrumming with energy.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9780593299661
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This is not an easy account to read, but it is important enough not to be forgotten.
A story of ordinary people, both victims and survivors, thrown into extraordinary history.
Pellegrino says his book is “simply the story of what happened to people and objects under the atomic bombs, and it is dedicated to the hope that no one will ever witness this, or die this way, again.” Images of Aug. 6, 1945, as reported by survivors, include the sight of a cart falling from the sky with the hindquarters of the horse pulling it still attached; a young boy who put his hands over his eyes as the bomb hit—and “saw the bones of his fingers shining through shut eyelids, just like an X-ray photograph”; “statue people” flash-fossilized and fixed in place, covered in a light snowfall of ashes; and, of course, the ghosts—people severely flash-burned on one side of their bodies, leaving shadows on a wall, the side of a building, or whatever stood nearby. The carnage continued for days, weeks, and years as victims of burns and those who developed various forms of cancer succumbed to their injuries: “People would continue to die in ways that people never imagined people could die.” Scattered in these survivor stories is another set of stories from those involved in the development and deployment of the only two atomic weapons ever used in warfare. The author also tells of the letter from Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard to Franklin D. Roosevelt that started the ball rolling toward the formation of the Manhattan Project and the crew conversations on the Enola Gay and the Bockscar, the planes that dropped the Little Boy on Hiroshima and the Fat Man on Nagasaki. We have to find a way to get along, one crew member said, “because we now have the wherewithal to destroy everything.”
This is not an easy account to read, but it is important enough not to be forgotten.Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2025
ISBN: 9798228309890
Page Count: 314
Publisher: Blackstone
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An erudite guide to the biblical world.
Revelations from the Old Testament.
“The Bible has no rivals when it comes to the art of omission, of not saying what everyone would like to know,” observes Calasso (1941-2021), the acclaimed Italian publisher, translator, and explorer of myth, gods, and sacred ritual. In this probing inquiry into biblical mysteries, the author meditates on the complexities and contradictions of key events and figures. He examines the “enigmatic nature” of original sin in Genesis, an anomaly occurring in no other creation myth; God’s mandate of circumcision for all Jewish men; and theomorphism in the form of Adam: a man created in the image of the god who made him. Among the individuals Calasso attends to in an abundantly populated volume are Saul, the first king of Israel; the handsome shepherd David, his successor; David’s son Solomon, whose relatively peaceful reign allowed him “to look at the world and study it”; Moses, steeped in “law and vengeance,” who incited the slaughter of firstborn sons; and powerful women, including the Queen of Sheba (“very beautiful and probably a witch”), Jezebel, and the “prophetess” Miriam, Moses’ sister. Raging throughout is Yahweh, a vengeful God who demands unquestioned obedience to his commandments. “Yahweh was a god who wanted to defeat other gods,” Calasso writes. “I am a jealous God,” Yahweh proclaims, “who punishes the children for the sins of their fathers, as far as the third and fourth generations.” Conflicts seemed endless: During the reigns of Saul and David, “war was constant, war without and war within.” Terse exchanges between David and Yahweh were, above all, “military decisions.” David’s 40-year reign was “harrowing and glorious,” marked by recurring battles with the Philistines. Calasso makes palpable schisms and rivalries, persecutions and retributions, holocausts and sacrifices as tribal groups battled one another to form “a single entity”—the people of Israel.
An erudite guide to the biblical world.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-374-60189-8
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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