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annieg4444's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
5.0
So what Isabella of France overthrew her shit husband with her boyfriend? So what if she got a little tyrannical herself?? God forbid women have hobbies….also, Matilda I’m sorry you didn’t get to become queen but your son cemented a dynasty I hope that helps <3 Eleanor you’re THE bad bitch of the Middle Ages. Divorce one husband/king and revolt against another husband/king. Tik tok would have loved making edits of you. And Margaret I feel like you’re the scary kind of soccer mom and I do respect that <3 another theme of this book was that all of these women had to marry idiots. That’s unfortunate.
beth_zovko's review against another edition
5.0
NERD ALERT: This is the yardstick by which I measure all nonfiction. Historians often sacrifice the human aspect their subject to detail dates, times, economics, etc. They often overload you with information for no clear reason, maybe to validate their amount of research. Or they can go the opposite tack and leave you desperate for a year, a town, a battle, (dear god anything!) you can use as a frame of reference.
Helen Castor is not that type of historian. She is a consummate storyteller who supplies her nerds with their fix of dates, names, and places.
Say Simon Schama is at one end of the nonfiction spectrum --the modern-day chronicler who relies on the beauty of English language to tell the story of the English people, but often ignores specific dates and places--and a McGraw-Hill history textbook--dry and matter of fact--is on the other. Castor falls right in the middle.
Her work is captivating, with a compassion for her subjects and a flair for the dramatic. It flows like a novel but is unmistakably scholarly. And like Schama, she has such a knack for putting subjects, events, and people into modern contexts. I just love when an historian uses the phrase "It would be as if . . ."
"She-Wolves" tells the story of forgotten queens, fleshing out their lives and explaining their motivations without recasting them as self-conscious feminists. Here again, Castor does a great job of avoiding the cliches many other writers of female history repeat. These were flawed people and they made decisions based on power, survival, greed--you know, like men--not to prove the merits of their gender.
In all, this is just a fantastic book that balances facts with flair, the medieval with the modern, and therefore is satisfying on several levels.
Helen Castor is not that type of historian. She is a consummate storyteller who supplies her nerds with their fix of dates, names, and places.
Say Simon Schama is at one end of the nonfiction spectrum --the modern-day chronicler who relies on the beauty of English language to tell the story of the English people, but often ignores specific dates and places--and a McGraw-Hill history textbook--dry and matter of fact--is on the other. Castor falls right in the middle.
Her work is captivating, with a compassion for her subjects and a flair for the dramatic. It flows like a novel but is unmistakably scholarly. And like Schama, she has such a knack for putting subjects, events, and people into modern contexts. I just love when an historian uses the phrase "It would be as if . . ."
"She-Wolves" tells the story of forgotten queens, fleshing out their lives and explaining their motivations without recasting them as self-conscious feminists. Here again, Castor does a great job of avoiding the cliches many other writers of female history repeat. These were flawed people and they made decisions based on power, survival, greed--you know, like men--not to prove the merits of their gender.
In all, this is just a fantastic book that balances facts with flair, the medieval with the modern, and therefore is satisfying on several levels.
deerisms's review against another edition
4.0
Helen Castor begins this book with the death of King Edward VI, and how for the first time in England's history, all the possible heirs to the throne were female; his sisters Mary and Elizabeth Tudor, as well as his personal pick, Jane Grey. However, this was the not the first time in history that a woman ruled England, as Castor demonstrates by providing a narrative account of four former queens of England. The lives of Empress Matilda, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, and Margaret of Anjou are chronicled in this work, all of whom were able to rule in place of their sons who were either too young, off fighting a crusade, or in the place of physically or mentally absent husbands.
This rating is really a 4.5, only because Castor tends to discuss the men around the women at times more than the actual women she is chronicling. However, I know that this is due to the unfortunate fact that the surviving sources are about the the men around the women, rather than the women themselves. For example, there is no surviving account which discusses what Empress Matilda's personality was like, even though she was once the Empress of the Holy Roman Empire and later the Queen of England, so Castor had no choice but to extrapolate what she could from the information available. Despite this, I found that Castor did an excellent job of crafting each of these women as the three dimensional people they were rather than rehash the one-note ideas found in the sources. I also enjoyed how she was able to connect each of these women to one other (including Mary, Elizabeth, and Jane Grey) by more than their bloodlines. You might not see the parallels while studying each woman individually, but by placing their histories next to each other you can, and Castor will show you them. I appreciated that Castor looked at each woman objectively, rather than vilify them for their actions (such as Eleanor abandoning her children from her first marriage or Isabella taking on a lover) as some authors are prone to. This was especially evident considering her book opens and closes with Elizabeth I becoming the Queen of England. Nearly every account I've read about Elizabeth writes her elder sister Mary as a bitter, vengeful crusader. Yet Castor illustrates that Mary is just as human as everyone else, which was so much more refreshing than another Bloody Mary rehash.
While She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth by Helen Castor may not be as expansive about each woman as one hopes, this book does present a clear, concise, and human chronicle about these Queens of England, and you will be presented with a more in depth history than our remaining historical sources can give us.
This rating is really a 4.5, only because Castor tends to discuss the men around the women at times more than the actual women she is chronicling. However, I know that this is due to the unfortunate fact that the surviving sources are about the the men around the women, rather than the women themselves. For example, there is no surviving account which discusses what Empress Matilda's personality was like, even though she was once the Empress of the Holy Roman Empire and later the Queen of England, so Castor had no choice but to extrapolate what she could from the information available. Despite this, I found that Castor did an excellent job of crafting each of these women as the three dimensional people they were rather than rehash the one-note ideas found in the sources. I also enjoyed how she was able to connect each of these women to one other (including Mary, Elizabeth, and Jane Grey) by more than their bloodlines. You might not see the parallels while studying each woman individually, but by placing their histories next to each other you can, and Castor will show you them. I appreciated that Castor looked at each woman objectively, rather than vilify them for their actions (such as Eleanor abandoning her children from her first marriage or Isabella taking on a lover) as some authors are prone to. This was especially evident considering her book opens and closes with Elizabeth I becoming the Queen of England. Nearly every account I've read about Elizabeth writes her elder sister Mary as a bitter, vengeful crusader. Yet Castor illustrates that Mary is just as human as everyone else, which was so much more refreshing than another Bloody Mary rehash.
While She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth by Helen Castor may not be as expansive about each woman as one hopes, this book does present a clear, concise, and human chronicle about these Queens of England, and you will be presented with a more in depth history than our remaining historical sources can give us.
joonswildflower7's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
informative
medium-paced
4.75
readingbooksinsteadoftherapy's review against another edition
It was unfortunately too boring and I got more information about the men than about the women.
bennought's review against another edition
5.0
As with her earlier book, [b:Blood & Roses|1063816|Blood & Roses|Helen Castor|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180670951s/1063816.jpg|1050457], 'She-Wolves' is one of the most well-written and fascinating pieces of scholarship. Castor delves extensively into contemporary documents, while still pulling well from previous scholarship to highlight a point, or provide an alternative interpretation. Castor's writing is clear and exciting, one almost feels like they're reading a novel.
My only criticism is that she should have extended the section on Mary Tudor--seeing as she was the only one of the five featured women who actually ruled successfully in her own right. The main foci of the sections on Mathilda, Eleanor, Isabella, and Margaret are the various ways in which each woman struggled to gain and consolidate control as a queen consort. Mary was the first queen regnant, and while her reign (and therefore the time over which Castor could expound) was fairly short, it provides the first instance of woman who actually gained and maintained legitimate control as the sole, anointed ruler of England. Many of the examples Mary relied on to legitimize and portray her rule were the used by Elizabeth, save that Elizabeth also had the immediate examples from Mary's rule. And though Castor provides a few examples of this, I feel she could have exploited Mary's reign for a better explication of her overall narrative on pre-Elizabethan female rulers.
Despite this concern, 'She-Wolves' easily makes it onto my list of favorites, and is a necessary read for anyone interested in Elizabethan, Marian, or Medieval English history, or for those interested in gender studies.
My only criticism is that she should have extended the section on Mary Tudor--seeing as she was the only one of the five featured women who actually ruled successfully in her own right. The main foci of the sections on Mathilda, Eleanor, Isabella, and Margaret are the various ways in which each woman struggled to gain and consolidate control as a queen consort. Mary was the first queen regnant, and while her reign (and therefore the time over which Castor could expound) was fairly short, it provides the first instance of woman who actually gained and maintained legitimate control as the sole, anointed ruler of England. Many of the examples Mary relied on to legitimize and portray her rule were the used by Elizabeth, save that Elizabeth also had the immediate examples from Mary's rule. And though Castor provides a few examples of this, I feel she could have exploited Mary's reign for a better explication of her overall narrative on pre-Elizabethan female rulers.
Despite this concern, 'She-Wolves' easily makes it onto my list of favorites, and is a necessary read for anyone interested in Elizabethan, Marian, or Medieval English history, or for those interested in gender studies.