Customer Reviews

WOMEN WARRIORS (M): A History (Warriors (Potomac Books))

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book on warrior women reads easily- only its density- for I found that Dr. Jones had included so much- revealed his university ties. Just as there were once women priests, so too women could be fierce, feared warriors. This book should be required reading for men in the military- so they can respect the potential of their female cohorts.

A rare find, indeed. Professor Jones has written about a neglected bit of women's history without being strident, lecturing or inventing facts. He covers all time periods and cultures, from Saudi Arabian battle queens, to Organa Khatun of Mongolia, to Rani Jhansi of India, to Molly Pitcher.

Prof. Jones' prose is easy to read, and he documents his findings in endnotes.

This book was fun to read. It fills in some very large gaps in military history and in women's history. Prof. Jones also provides some much-needed background for the current controversy about women in combat.

_Women Warriors_ should be of interest to anyone who is interested in history, women, or war. It also would be a very good book to give to a teenage woman.

The author sums up the book in his own preface. "History, as you will read, demonstrates that the warrior's mantle is a woman's birthright as surely as it is a man's and that the hand that rocks the cradle can also wield the sword." I found the book highly readable, and an enthusiastic overview of women's warrior history. Many of the stories were not new to me. I already knew the histories of women pirates, gladiators, warriors and soldiers--from hundreds of different sources scattered throughout historical material. But that is the beauty of this book. It combines into one compact volume a known history long ignored. And the author encompasses the world's history, not just a particular continent or a single point in time. The entire work is carefully footnoted. The historical references at the back of the book appear thoroughly researched. The author himself "sought references that purport to be historical as opposed to mythological texts". The index is efficient. All in all, an excellent book, and an excellent history.

Professor Jones tries to write a history of women warriors but fails for a number of reasons. First,the book lacks coherence. He includes women who were warriors, war time leaders and any other women who could at all be tied into a martial tradition. He even brings in Cleopatra, neither a warrior nor a general nor the leader of a nation at war. However, he makes no effort to create any kind of theory to explain women warriors or even identify any common patterns of behavior. Consequently the book is simply a collection of anecdotes organized only by region. Second, the book contains a number of factual errors. For example, he mentions "General Julius Caesar" invading Britain during the reign of Claudius and later refers to Saxons conquering Roman Britain in the first century AD. In fact, Julius Caesar led an expedition against Britain about a century before Emperor Claudius, it was during Claudius's reign that Britain became part of the Empire and the Saxons didn't invade until the fifth century. Likewise, he describes Lucy Brewer as the first female Marine and fails to mention her account was most likely fiction. These are just errors I caught in passing. Third, he leaps mightily in his conclusions. He claims integrating women in the military should be no problem, despite the fact all of the warriors he describes are either unique individuals or (much less often) members of female only units. He also claims martial arts training negates the male advantages of size and strength. This ignores strength needed to bear arms, armor and gear in battle and on long marches. In addition, ancient armies didn't have the time to train common soldiers to the level of martial arts experts. Even the intensively trained Roman legions preferred big and strong recruits. As a final note, I am amazed Charles Moskos gave this book a blurb. Antonia Fraser's "Warrior Queens" and Eileen MacDonald's "Shoot the Women First" are much better treatments of related subjects. Give this one a pass.

Great book to read if you're ever feeling down, and think you can't do it, you're not strong enough, whatever.. You read some of these 'real' women's stories, and it makes you rethink what is truly possible, when faced with overwhelming odds.
I've attempted to read several of the other 'Women Warrior' books, and found the author's writing styles...in a word, or two, boring and dull.
This book I thoroughly enjoyed, even though I am not a history buff.

Women Warriors through history and today. A very interesting and informative read. Too often these unsung heroes and their great deeds have been overlooked and downplayed, these Lady Warriors proved and are still proving the world over, that they are the equal and can sometimes be better than men who were/are with them. I highly recommend this book for men and women. History does repeat itself and we will see more of these "Lady Warriors' taking on the fight and 'taking care of business'.

I do a lot of educational programs for local libraries on the subject of famous women warriors, and use this book for a favorite reference. It is a delightful read, lots of fun, full of fascinating anecdotes and tidbits that keep you turning pages. I do wish Prof. Jones had included a more extensive bibliography (I'd love to research some of the cases he glosses over), and I strongly question some of his assertions, but overall it is a fabulous book and very informative. Of course there have always been women warriors. Some of them quite famous. Antonio Fraser also wrote an excellent book on the subject, but Prof. Jones' book is more accessible for your average reader, and should be recommended reading in schools. 1 caveat: this is not a Bible on the subject; Prof. Jones makes the occasional factual error--three that I noticed, and someone who actually researched more heavily might catch more. But name one "historical" work that doesn't contain at least one goof. The errors are very minor, and unrelated to the overall theme: women in all cultures, in all lands and time, have a long and proud martial heritage. This is still a valuable reference book.

David E. Jones has written a very interesting history book about a too little known topic. Many people have heard about the wars lead by Elisabeth 1. and Catherine the Great - and, in our own age, Margaret Thatcher. But what about the hundreds and thousands of warriors - princesses, peasant girls and many others - who actively fought "like men" in wars from antiquity until our present age?

I must admit that this book fills a gap in my knowledge about women in war. The notion of war as a male
activity is, if not entirely false, only partly true. The differences of behavior between the sexes are not so big after all,when it comes to fighting!

Anthropologist Jones might have benefited from a bit more ambition in planning the scope of this project. From page one, he's on a mission to convince and makes an unqualified success of it. Throughout recorded history, women have successfully fought and defeated their male counterparts in battle.

The historical and anecdotal evidence is overwhelming. We're talking hand to hand combat - women win. We're talking riding at the forefront of the calvary charge - women win. We're talking all-female armies - victorious. You name it, women can and have repeatedly gone to war and succeeded as well or better than men.

Even today, the tradition continues - although less commonly in westernized societies. In the west, we experience a different kind of war - the household war. Yes, the battle of the sexes continues without abatement. Women are natural guerilla fighters, and when the outlet of real combat is closed off, the silent war must take its place.

Reviewer bias aside, however, with the case made so early, why the hundred extra pages of detail? For anyone not vitally interested in amassing a thousand cases to cite as evidence in support of a point of view on the subject of women as pure warriors, this work overwhelms with minutia. Writing is about making choices but here, the author doesn't seem to know how. Long after irrefutable evidence is amply presented, the droning continues. Names, names, names, and too-thin sketches of events. At this point, an unspoken question screams to be answered: fine, so that's the way it is, but what happened? What changed society? How did women fade from glorious contributors worthy of male respect to become dainty objects who knew only how to say, "no" and, "I can't"?

Here is the failure in scope mentioned earlier. To the extent that the author does not apply himself to suggesting answers to the questions he raises, and that these, to this reader at least, are critical to the fulfillment of our new understanding, Women Warriors succeeds, but falls short of being memorable.

The secret to this book is its copious bibliography; more than enough information for one to go ahead and look up further information on anything mentioned that caught one's interest. And while it falls under the umbrella of a brief and wide ranging survey of the subject, many stories are just interesting enough to warrant further investigation.

All in all a good read.