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PRODUCT
Normal Women: Nine Hundred Years of Making History
Product Description:
Price:
$21.99
Detailed description:
“Lively, timely and gloriously energetic. Each page bursts with life, and every chapter swirls with personalities left out of traditional narratives of Britain’s past. Philippa Gregory has produced something rare and wonderful: a genuinely new history of [Britain], with women at its beating heart.” —Dan Jones, New York Times bestselling author of The Plantagenets
“You’ve devoured her novels, but now Gregory shows off chops as a historian. . . . An amazing read.” —The Los Angeles Times
The #1 New York Times bestselling historical novelist delivers her magnum opus—a landmark work of feminist nonfiction that radically redefines our understanding of the extraordinary roles ordinary women played throughout British history.
AN INDIE BESTSELLER
Did you know that there are more penises than women in the Bayeux Tapestry? That the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 was started and propelled by women who were protesting a tax on women? Or that celebrated naturalist Charles Darwin believed not just that women were naturally inferior to men, but that they’d evolve to become ever more inferior?
These are just a few of the startling findings you will learn from reading Philippa Gregory’s Normal Women. In this ambitious and groundbreaking book, she tells the story of England over 900 years, for the very first time placing women—some fifty per cent of the population—center stage.
Using research skills honed in her work as one of our foremost historical novelists, Gregory trawled through court records, newspapers, and journals to find highwaywomen and beggars, murderers and brides, housewives and pirates, female husbands and hermits. The “normal women” you will meet in these pages went to war, ploughed the fields, campaigned, wrote, and loved. They rode in jousts, flew Spitfires, issued their own currency, and built ships, corn mills and houses. They committed crimes or treason, worshipped many gods, cooked and nursed, invented things, and rioted. A lot.
A landmark work of scholarship and storytelling, Normal Women chronicles centuries of social and cultural change—from 1066 to modern times—powered by the determination, persistence, and effectiveness of women.
*INCLUDES ILLUSTRATIONS THROUGHOUT AND A FULL-COLOR INSERT*
“An expansive, inclusive and elegantly woven nonfiction account of the lives of women in England from the Norman Conquest to the modern day. To describe it as merely a retelling is to undermine a core principle: This is a history of women in England, yes, but it is also a history of England, full stop. . . . At more than 500 pages, with extensive endnotes and a 30-page index, Normal Women is a behemoth you may be inclined to skim, until you realize you’re actually luxuriating in every word.” —The New York Times
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Product group:
Categories: Women Writers
Product name:
Normal Women: Nine Hundred Years of Making History
Price:
$21.99
Elizabeth Knight –
Fascinating and eye-opening even in the first 10 pages. Reveals a world of women that was closed off to us before, correcting the ignorance that has kept us in darkness.
Kindle Cat Customer –
I got it from the library, thankfully.
It is very thorough. The pre-Elizabethan section was most interesting and good reading. Then it just was too academic. It will be cited extensively but isn’t a leisure read.
Amazon Customer –
I’m really enjoying this book. Just know that it’s a dense read and not something you’re going to breeze through in a weekend.
R.Ware –
A review of ordinary and elite women’s lives over the past 800 years or so. When I saw the pages of notes at the back, I thought the book would be too scholarly for me. However it has been a brilliant read, and the notes are there to offer the evidence attesting to the incidents described in the text. It is a very thorough and thoroughly readable account. In fact I have now bought two, and gifted one to a friend. The equality we women had in the early Middle Ages was gradually eroded. Enclosures being a major cause. And our financial subservience to our husbands went on into modern times, for I am old enough to remember when I had to reveal my finances to my husband for him to submit our tax return! I think a point she could have made. I am not always in agreement with her opinions, particularly on how many sexes there are; nevertheless, I am very glad to have bought this book. It is a treasure.
Susiegirl –
This book was very interesting and informative, but I confess I had to have breaks to read something lighter as it was so fact packed. I particularly enjoyed the stories of individual women.
Stephanie –
A beautifully woven history of women which details the origins of today’s inequalities such as, how women’s labour moved from valued and paid to being invisible and free and why we have been forced into two genders. It details how the double shift was born and how ‘women’s work’ was gradually forced to the home where it was unseen. It was empowering to read about a history where women worked in ale production, were a part of guilds, played football first and boxed. And it was devastating to see how this was slowly eroded by a society of men who feared women’s sexualities and independence. Gregory highlights a pattern of woman doing something – like knitting, boxing, weaving, owning taverns, painting, – then men taking it up, excluding women by barring their access to it, then removing them from records.
It is particularly interesting that I’m reading this at a time when we see hearing about the effect a lack of female input had in the COVID response. I understand this is a new context now because the book explains the evolution of why male incompetence still chosen over female brilliance.
I need to read it again. There was just too much to take in – one gem that has stayed in the forefront of my mind is that fact that a male doctor kept the life saving invention of forceps as a secret knowledge to be passed down his line. Meanwhile women died needlessly. The whole book is a fascinating, devastating read.
Amazon Customer –
Love the concept and love all the snippets proving women’s work used to be very similar to men’s before mainstream religion really took hold – BUT the writing style is so weird. She drops these little breadcrumbs of proof then leaps away to a different topic without ever explaining her sources or filling out the story.
Might improve on a second reading, but for now it feels like maybe a rush job to meet a publisher’s deadline…
If you like this kind of thing – giving women back the voices they lost by not being important to later male record-keepers – you will get a much better experience with something like Emma Southon’s History of the Rome Empire in 21 Women.
Kindle Customer –
Thorough, not dry but detailed. Horrific in many ways but all true. This is worth a read by males and females.
Stephanie –
product arrived quickly and in great condition, it is a very interesting book, very happy with this purchase
Fred –
A bit more academic than I expected based on her previous novels. The woman is an incredible researcher. I was impressed with the strength of the women who led the women’s movement through history.
Jean Yates –
I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of women of accomplishment in Gregory’s book. Open it to any page and someone I hadn’t heard of who did something worthy of note is described. This is a book I’ve been keeping by my desk and when I need inspiration I open it to any page and find someone to admire and identify with. While very readable, this is more of a reference book for me, and I plan to keep it close at hand.
Dianne Longofono –
Gregory’s work of nonfiction is different from her historical fiction, and yet not. Very enjoyable reading!
tidesedge –
I’ve read a lot of English history books—not one ever made me laugh like this one or glued me to the page quite like this either. There’s so much to see here! Instead of a few interesting antidotes about a handful wealthy white women being outstanding this is literally the story of all of us doing everything. The author’s incredible storytelling talents means it never gets too dense nor boring. Riveting and eye-opening!