Joyce Tyldesley, “Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt” (Basic Books, 2008)

Joyce Tyldesley, “Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt” (Basic Books, 2008)

“Swords and Sandals” movies always amaze me. You know the ones I’m talking about: “Spartacus,” “Ben-Hur,” “Gladiator,” and the rest. These movies are so rich in detail–both narrative and physical–that you feel like you are “there.” But the fact is that we don’t and really can’t know much about “there” (wherever “there” happens to be in the Ancient World) because the sources are very, very thin. As Joyce Tyldesley points out in her terrific Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt (Basic Books, 2008), Cleopatra is a mystery and necessarily so. We don’t know who her mother was, when she was born, what she looked like, whom she married, and a host of other details about her life. That means, of course, that every dramatist from Shakespeare on has been, well, making stuff up about Cleopatra. Actually, many of the “primary sources” about her are full of invention because they were written long after the events they describe by Roman authors who just didn’t like her very much. They did like a good story, so they embellished, as any good storyteller will. Joyce is an excellent storyteller herself, but she takes no poetic license. She tells us just what can be known–and trust me, that’s more than enough to hold our attention! This book is a great read for anyone interested in learning about the real world of Ptolemaic Egypt. Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Jaksot(1879)

Catherine Reyes-Housholder, "How Women Win Presidential Elections in Latin America" (Temple UP, 2026)

Catherine Reyes-Housholder, "How Women Win Presidential Elections in Latin America" (Temple UP, 2026)

Between 1990 and 2020, women candidates won only 6% of the world’s presidential races. How Women Win Presidential Elections in Latin America (Temple University Press, 2026) explains the factors, strat...

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Shelly Lundberg "How Economics Discovered Women: Bringing Gender Economics into the Twenty-First Century" (U California Press, 2026)

Shelly Lundberg "How Economics Discovered Women: Bringing Gender Economics into the Twenty-First Century" (U California Press, 2026)

In the 1970s, as women started to enter the labor force in unprecedented numbers, economists began to examine their roles as economic actors. The result was the rise of gender economics, now a major s...

25 Elo 47min

Jane Draycott, "Fulvia: The Woman Who Broke All the Rules in Ancient Rome" (Yale UP, 2025)

Jane Draycott, "Fulvia: The Woman Who Broke All the Rules in Ancient Rome" (Yale UP, 2025)

Fulvia was born into wealth, privilege, and prestige around the year 80 BCE, yet there was nothing inherently special about her—she was not a saint, an empress, or a queen. But during the years leadin...

22 Elo 1h 3min

Rick Ramseyer, "Girl Without a Country: The Untold Story of a Landmark Fight for U.S. Citizenship" (Purdue UP, 2026)

Rick Ramseyer, "Girl Without a Country: The Untold Story of a Landmark Fight for U.S. Citizenship" (Purdue UP, 2026)

Should willingness to kill be a requirement for U.S. citizenship? Girl Without a Country: The Untold Story of a Landmark Fight for U.S. Citizenship (Purdue University Press, 2026) by Rick Ramseyer tel...

15 Elo 27min

Younus Y. Mirza, "The Islamic Mary: Maryam Through the Centuries" (Fortress Press, 2025)

Younus Y. Mirza, "The Islamic Mary: Maryam Through the Centuries" (Fortress Press, 2025)

Mary, the mother of Jesus, has been historically revered throughout the Islamic tradition. This began already in the Qur'an, where she is called by the name "Maryam." The Islamic Mary: Maryam Through ...

12 Elo 46min

Julie Kliegman, "Finding Renée Richards: The Groundbreaking Story of Tennis’s Trans Pioneer" (HarperOne, 2026)

Julie Kliegman, "Finding Renée Richards: The Groundbreaking Story of Tennis’s Trans Pioneer" (HarperOne, 2026)

Fifty years ago, tennis player Renée Richards made international headlines in her fight to compete in the women’s draw of the 1977 US Open—marking the first time a trans athlete sued to participate in...

11 Elo 44min

Daniel Majchrowicz, "A Journey to Mecca and London: The Travels of an Indian Muslim Woman, 1909–1910" (Indiana UP, 2025)

Daniel Majchrowicz, "A Journey to Mecca and London: The Travels of an Indian Muslim Woman, 1909–1910" (Indiana UP, 2025)

Descended from Mughal nobility, Akhtar al-Nisa Begum Nawab Sarbuland Jung grew up in Hyderabad in southern India, where she lived a quiet, private, and privileged life at the heart of the state's ro...

10 Elo 1h 1min

Leopoldina Fortunati, "The Arcana of Reproduction: Housewives, Prostitutes, Workers and Capital" (Verso, 2025)

Leopoldina Fortunati, "The Arcana of Reproduction: Housewives, Prostitutes, Workers and Capital" (Verso, 2025)

The definitive feminist analysis of reproductive and ‘caring’ labor to emerge from Italian feminism of the 1970s. Emerging from the great social upheavals that contested the sexual and racial divisio...

8 Elo 1h 15min

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