A review by whatjuliareads
Game of Queens: The Women Who Made Sixteenth-Century Europe by Sarah Gristwood

4.0

Lots of information and very accessible - I'm not an expert in this subject matter at all, but I found this a great jumping off point (I have a list of all sorts of interesting things that I need to look into from this). Parts of this reminded me of Natalie Zemon Davis' work - trying to read intention, emotion, and motivation into situations that we have limited records of. If you enjoyed The Return of Martin Guerre, this definitely has aspects of that. Sometimes I felt that the conclusions seemed tenuous (but this was usually prefaced with Sarah Gristwood stating that it was possible interpretation, or something of that general nature) but I though overall the research seemed solid, interpretations clear, and the whole thing was presented in a really engaging way. I plan on picking up more of her books over time.