Janina Ramirez

I'm coming to realize I am not the audience for these books, as much as I whine and cry and try to make them be.

Femina is not so much a "new" history of medieval women's lives as it is a series of nine biographies of exceptional women who lived in the European Middle Ages. There are much fuller negative reviews on this that I recommend perusing, but broadly speaking, this book offers nothing new to readers familiar with the period. The author's thesis is the laziest of pop-feminist history: show more "Did you know... Women did stuff back then?" Anyone who seriously believes women did nothing exceptional for a thousand years is so far gone, maybe it's a blessing that this book exists.

Anyway, this book reminded me of everything I hate about the current trend of popular feminist frameworks of texts. Femina reminded me of the let-down that was The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women's Roles in Society—A pop-history book promising to elucidate the reader on something much larger, complicated, and nuanced than the author is either able or willing to do. I always find it funny that the authors of books like this remind the reader over and over again how rich the tapestry of time is but cannot seem to go deeper than the surface-level critique their advertising promises. When will they truly take to heart that history cannot be boiled down to pithy feminist takes? When will (usually female) social historians give their readers something to really chew on? Why do I feel like women's-interest history always believe their readers are complete fucking dolts?

To summarize, I don't think it's possible to extract more than Ramírez simple thesis when you look at only nine people, and nine very, very wealthy and powerful people at that. It's interesting, sure, and these women absolutely deserve to be in the casual historical canon as the author argues, but... It is in no way a "new history," you know? That would entail much, much more than Ramírez is willing to put in.

Well... The book obviously strikes a cord though: look at those high reviews! I would only recommend this to people who know close to nothing on this period, and obviously only as a supplement to a more historiographical sound or primary source texts. I'm just annoyed at sexism and its over-production of limp-wristed non-fiction texts.

On to new pop history I will inevitably hate... show less

What a treat to get this in the mail. It is a gorgeous book featuring 50 goddesses, spirits, and saints from different global belief systems and regions of the world. The book is organized by topics: ruling and guiding, new life, war and death, love and wisdom, and animals and nature. Each two page panel features a goddess, with a beautifully illustrated god and smaller illustrations to help readers connect the words with the text.

The text is modern and easy for children to grasp and show more understand. I also appreciate the author incorporated current events into the text -- such as in write-up of Pele (Hawai`i) there is a line about Mauna Kea and a proposed telescope that would desecrate Pele's home.

This would be a great book for an upper elementary class project on learning how to do research.

One thing missing from the book is a pronunciation guide for the goddesses. But this could be an extended learning exercise for students to research if it is used in a classroom setting. show less

A fantastic read!

I can't sing the praises of this book enough. I've always enjoyed reading about history. Consequently, I already knew versions of the History told by much of the earlier chapters of the book. But what this book did fantastically is to reinforce and give voice to the women who were there all along, tucked behind the narratives that have taken hold over time (as well as all the people who put so much effort and time to discover those voices)

A fantastic example (I've set this show more as a spoiler, but it consists of me telling the version of History I knew, and praising the book for expanding it in ways I never knew) is the telling of the story of the conversion of the Kentish people to Christianity. The basic version that I knew quite well can be summed up in this skit by my childhood favourite, Horrible Histories: https://youtu.be/MpWVj2ZCRKE?si=3WhrtxMdu6qoqPI7&t=125 (The Gist being St. Augustine came, convinced the king to convert, and he was readily accepting; the ease being explained by him having a wife that was Christian. This put the emphasis on St. Augustine and King Aethelbert, leaving his wife unnamed and as an afterthought) Through The author's efforts, it felt like Queen Bertha's voice was near enough put to paper. Her efforts, sacrifices and achievements taking centre stage, I now have a much deeper understanding and appreciation for this part of history, and for her as a critical person in the History of English Christianity. (And that of her family as well!)

I cannot recommend this book enough, especially if you already know about this period of history to some degree. (Though I only had a bit of knowledge on the Anglo-Saxon period and thoroughly enjoyed learning about all the other periods of history included!)

This book was sold to me as an informative book about important historical women, and in fact was so much more. The Author showed what is becoming possible with modern techniques of analysing the past and has left me so excited to see and hear the voices of the past continue to be rediscovered! show less

This book is GORGEOUS! It's organized not by country, culture, or religion but by the specialty of the female figure like Ruling and Guiding, New Life, or War and Death, which makes the connections between them interesting and clear. I cannot say enough about the illustrations, which are bold and bright and appealing to kids without coming off as childish. The bright pink hardcover and the gold flecked cover just call to you to pluck it off the shelf. Most importantly, the diversity is show more wonderful! Beautiful women of all shapes, sizes, and skin colors are included - Norse, African, Haitian, Welsh, Chinese, Greek, Jewish, Middle Eastern, Lakota, Irish, Aztec, Hawaiian - just to name a few! Really glad I won this book. I would highly recommend it! show less