100 Must Read Titles About Women S History

In 1979, the first women’s history conference was held at Sarah Lawrence College. In the 21st century, our history is still overwhelmingly male-centered. The fact I hadn’t heard of so many of these women before making this list makes me more determined than ever to share the history of women when I can, and to do what is possible to change the perception of history from the deeds of men to the deeds of humans. Feel free to leave your own favorite women from history in the comments below so we can expand this list past 100, and continue to try and make the voices of women from all times and places heard. General History A History of the Wife by Marilyn Yalom No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women by Estelle Freedman Women Artists: An Illustrated History by Nancy G. Heller Women in the Middle Ages: The Lives of Real Women in a Vibrant Age of Transition by Frances & Joseph Gies Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science – and the World by Rachel Swaby Nike Is a Goddess: The History of Women in Sports by Lucy Danziger   Feminist Theory The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by bell hooks The Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich Women, Race, & Class by Angela Y. Davis   Ancient World Hypatia of Alexandria by Maria Dzielska The Warrior Queens: The Legends and the Lives of Women Who Have Led Their Nations in War by Antonia Fraser Daughters of Isis: Women of Ancient Egypt by Joyce Tyldesley The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future by Riane Eisler Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years by Elizabeth Wayland Barber   Africa The Female King of Colonial Nigeria: Ahebi Ugbabe by Nwando Achebe Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation At War by Leymah Gbowee Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali The Queen of Katwe: A Story of Life, Chess, and One Extraordinary Girl’s Dream of Becoming a Grandmaster by Tim Crothers African Feminism: The Politics of Survival in Sub-Saharan Africa by Gwendolyn Mikell In Praise of Black Women, Volume 1: Ancient African Queens by Simone Schwarz-Bart, et al.   Australia The Tin Ticket: The Heroic Journey of Australia’s Convict Women by Deborah J. Swiss Wise Women of the Dreamtime: Aboriginal Tales of Ancestral Powers by K. Langloh Parker   Caribbean Slave Women in Caribbean Society: 1650-1832 by Barbara Bush Women in Caribbean History by Verene Shepherd Natural Rebels: A Social History of Enslaved Women in Barbados by Hilary McD. Beckles   East Asia Women of Korea: A History from Ancient Times to 1945 by Yung-Chung Kim In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom by Yeonmi Park Sky Train: Tibetan Women on the Edge of History by Canyon Sam The Voice That Remembers: A Tibetan Woman’s Inspiring Story of Survival by Ama Adhe Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire by Jack Weatherford Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady by Laura Tyson Li Manchu Princess, Japanese Spy: The Story of Kawashima Yoshiko, the Cross-Dressing Spy Who Commanded Her Own Army by Phyllis Birnbaum Daughters of the Samurai: A Journey from East to West and Back by Janice Nimura   Eastern Europe Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie Night Witches: The Amazing Story of Russia’s Women Pilots in WWII by Bruce Myles Thousands of Roads: A Memoir of a Young Woman’s Life in the Ukrainian Underground During and After World War II by Maria Savchyn Pyskir   Latin America Dreaming With the Ancestors: Black Seminole Women in Texas and Mexico by Shirley Boteler Mock Revolutionary Women in Postrevolutionary Mexico by Jocelyn H. Olcott Isabel Orleans-Bragança: The Brazilian Princess Who Freed the Slaves by James McMurtry Longo Searching for Life: The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and the Disappeared Children of Argentina by Rita Arditti Eva Peron: A Biography by Alicia Dujovne Ortiz My Invented Country: A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile by Isabel Allende Women & Guerrilla Movements by Karen Kampwirth The Country Under My Skin: A Memoir of Love and War by Gioconda Belli Bananeras: Women Transforming the Banana Unions of Latin America by Dana Franks I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala by Rigoberta Menchu   Middle East Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia by Jean Sasson Palestinian Women of Gaza and the West Bank by Suha Sabbagh Golda by Elinor Burkett The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan by Jenny Nordberg Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi   South Asia Humanizing the Sacred: Sisters in Islam and the Struggle for Gender Justice in Malaysia by Azza Basarudin The Bandit Queen of India: An Indian Woman’s Amazing Journey from Peasant to International Legend by Phoolan Devi It’s Always Possible: One Woman’s Transformation of India’s Prison System by Kiran Bedi White Saris and Sweet Mangoes: Aging, Gender, and Body in North India by Sarah Lamb Borders and Boundaries: How Women Experienced the Partition of India by Ritu Menon The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan by Rafia Zakaria Undaunted: My Struggle for Freedom and Survival in Burma by Zoya Phan Wives, Slaves, and Concubines: A History of the Female Underclass in Dutch Asia by Eric Jones   South Pacific From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaii by Haunani-Kay Trask   US/Canada The Myth of Seneca Falls by Lisa Tetrault Women on Ice: The Early Years of Women’s Ice Hockey in Western Canada by Wayne Norton Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth Century America by Lillian Faderman Identity by Design: Tradition, Change, and Celebration in Native Women’s Dresses Louise Pound: The 19th Century Iconoclast Who Forever Changed America’s Views About Women, Academics, and Sports by Marie Krohn Good Time Girls of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush by Lael Morgan In the Days of Our Grandmothers: A Reader in Aboriginal Women’s History in Canada The Scarlet Sisters: Sex, Suffrage, and Scandal in the Gilded Age by Myra MacPherson Discarded Legacy: Politics and Poetics in the Life of Frances E.W. Harper by Melba Joyce Boyd Rad American Women A-Z by Kate Schatz and Miriam Klein Stahl America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines by Gail Collins Walking in the Sacred Manner: Healers, Dreamers, and Pipe Carriers–Medicine Women of the Plains by Mark St. Pierre Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States by Alice Kessler-Harris Daughters of the Earth: The Lives and Legends of American Indian Women by Carolyn Niethammer Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race, Sex, and Violence in America by Kali Nicole Gross Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence by Carol Berkin Pretty-shield: Medicine Woman of the Crows by Frank Linderman Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic by Jennifer Niven A Jury of Her Peers: Celebrating American Women from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx by Elaine Showalter Far More Terrible for Women: Personal Accounts of Women in Slavery The Belles of New England: The Women of the Textile Mills and the Families Whose Wealth They Wove by William Moran Open Wide the Freedom Gates: A Memoir by Dorothy Height   Western Europe Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World by Catalina De Erauso Ravensbrück: Life and Death in Hitler’s Concentration Camp for Women by Sarah Helm The Winter Queen: Elizabeth of Bohemia by Carola Oman The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman by Nancy Marie Brown Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution by Caroline Weber Sophie Scholl and the White Rose by Annette Dumbach & Jud Newborn The Pope’s Daughter: The Extraordinary Life of Felice della Rovere by Caroline Murphy Isabella: The Warrior Queen by Kirstin Downey She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth by Helen Castor