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colleenf 's review for:
Hatchepsut: The Female Pharaoh
by Joyce Tyldesley
Meh.
This is a very well-written biography, I'll say that right away. The author is engaging, and explains things as clearly as she can to ground the reader into something they can relate to, in a culture very different than ours. We try to read as we can feel the events, rather than just dry names and numbers. Hatchepsut, after all, was one of Egypt's better kings, much to the contrast to the more famous, but failing
But unfortunately, what we can get out of the book is that historians hardly have any idea about her reign at all, other than that she led Egypt to trade with a poorer country called Punt somewhere to the southeast, ruled by a very fat queen; and that she designed and built a very large temple. Nothing else is concrete. There are hints of rivalry with her step-son; there are hints of a love story gone wrong with the architect Senenmut. There may have been a war, or at least a series of minor rebellions in conquered territory. But combined with propaganda and the mysterious, sudden attacks of her name and image done sometime after her death left us confused and uncertain, and while I left the book definitely knowing more about the Pharaoh, history, not the author, left me a bit disappointed.
This is a very well-written biography, I'll say that right away. The author is engaging, and explains things as clearly as she can to ground the reader into something they can relate to, in a culture very different than ours. We try to read as we can feel the events, rather than just dry names and numbers. Hatchepsut, after all, was one of Egypt's better kings, much to the contrast to the more famous, but failing
But unfortunately, what we can get out of the book is that historians hardly have any idea about her reign at all, other than that she led Egypt to trade with a poorer country called Punt somewhere to the southeast, ruled by a very fat queen; and that she designed and built a very large temple. Nothing else is concrete. There are hints of rivalry with her step-son; there are hints of a love story gone wrong with the architect Senenmut. There may have been a war, or at least a series of minor rebellions in conquered territory. But combined with propaganda and the mysterious, sudden attacks of her name and image done sometime after her death left us confused and uncertain, and while I left the book definitely knowing more about the Pharaoh, history, not the author, left me a bit disappointed.