Women Warriors: An Unexpected History

This book has many strengths, among them:*The author covers global history, which gives a wide understanding of women warriors*Excellent writing style, that is clear, sometimes funny, and never dull*Thoughtful, insightful analysis of when and why women became warriors, and why they have so often been forgotten and/or erased from history.*She has many gripping discussions of the sources about the women she discusses. I loved these discussions.*She has a strong critical sense and is objective, not cheerleading women warriors simply because putting women back into history as warriors is her agenda. Rather she retains a historian's objectivity and need for evidence. For example, she notes that in 19th century revolutions, records constantly fall back on 30% of revolutionary fighters being women - a generality the author rightly finds suspicious as it is so consistent and vague, and cuts across cultures.There are a couple improvements needed:*First, the author does not deal honestly with the issue of men being physically stronger than women - she treats this as mostly a societal construct, and a way for men to bar women from combat. Yes, she shows how men have used this to stop women getting jobs in combat. However, it is not a social construct, it is a scientific, well-tested fact that on average men are physically stronger than women. She needs to address this fact more fully, including the issue that some women in the U.S. military are not required to perform to the same physical level as their male counter-parts in the same job. This issue is a quibble, but something she could address in the next edition of the book.*Secondly, the book doesn't go into enough detail about the individual women; we generally get a vague overview of their stories. More depth, in terms of context of time and place, and details of story, would help a lot. Being a historian myself, and having researched some of the women in the book, I know there is a lot more information out there. Adding more information would make the book MUCH more compelling and useful. Given that the book is only 240 pages including footnotes and index, the author could have added another 100 pages, which would have given the study much greater depth, and it still would not have been close to overly long (consider: many biographies now run to 500 or 600 pages).Overall, thank you Ms. Toler for a wonderful, insightful book!

I LOVED this book. I found it smart without being intimidating or cumbersome. I learned so much, but it was as if Pamela Toler was sitting across the table from me just entertaining me with stories. I only read a few each evening to make the book last longer and so I could have time to think about the stories, and sometimes I looked up the woman or the war or her tribe or country. Sometimes I read the footnotes to a particular story and sometimes I didn't, depending on how much connection I felt to the woman and her story. It's a rich feast and you don't have to feel that you have to "study" it or read it in a certain way. Just enjoy!

This is the perfect book if you read in bite-sized chunks. The author gives you one brief biography after another, grouped thematically with a bit of analysis. Many of her insights are in the footnotes, and the kindle app makes it easy to navigate between the main text and the footnotes.But the real strength is in the information. I had never heard of 4/5 of these women. Even people like the Queen who killed Cyrus the Great were unfamiliar to me. Many of the women I did know, such as Katherine of Aragon, I see in a new light now that I know they are warriors. Even better: because women warriors crop up retry much everywhere, the book sheds light on places like precolonial Vietnam and colonial Africa, where light is much needed.

Some examples of women warriors were obscure, others well known. Pamela Toler have the popular accounts of each of them and also explained the problems with historical accounts and evidence.A thoroughly interesting read.

Almost every woman author,writing on women warriors, starts by thanking Lady Antonia Fraser(Pinter) ,for Warrior Queens. Pamela D. Toler ,though leaving out critical information, such as birth ,and death dates,writes a much better book. I knew the Queens in Fraser's book,here there are many more important women-only so well known. She opens with Caterina Sforza,and ends with Maria Bochkareva,followed by unnamed Viking women warriors. Highly recommended.

I'm always trying to find information about 'lost women in History' and this book is full of those ladies. I learned a lot in a very entertaining way, but without being 'dumbed down' for the general public. Read this book. Really.

Excellent material and easy to read writing. I had trouble discerning an overall structure or flow to it, and I believe this led to a lot of repetition in the book. There's a basis for a true blockbuster here, and I hope the author writes several more on the same topic. Overall a un read that I am glad I invested the time and money into. I do think it could be far better if it was more focused and structured.

Absolutely brilliant, compelling, accessibly-written and academically rigorous history. I couldn't recommend it any more highly. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!

Un des meilleurs livres que j'ai lu récemment, il montre une nouvelle vision de l'histoire et du féminisme ! Je recommande.