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I found this book about the six women rulers of Egypt very interesting, although at some times it felt a little tilted rather than neutral fact.
It, of course, covered the more well-known women like Nefertiti, Hatshepsut, and Cleopatra, but I really enjoyed learning about the lesser known women rulers: Merneith, Neferusobek, and Tawisret.

I can‘t believe I‘m the first to post about this book! Im not a huge nonfiction reader but I‘m a third of the way through and it‘s been fascinating stuff we don‘t learn in school. There is a BBC mini series on YouTube too. #firstlinefridays

(1/2) Oops. Just completely forgot to post about the last two books I read lol. Been completely swept up in the new school year!

My last read of the summer. I figured it was short enough to squeeze in before school started & would be nice to knock out before I started the September seminar on CLR James that I‘m taking with the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research! 🙂

This book should be titled, When Women "Ruled" the World instead. While I thought this was going to be about female empowerment/feminism... it's giving much more, "she was in power only bc... "xx" reason." Men were still seen as superior. I thought this was going to be about a time when women were seen as equals.. but the author enjoys pointing out the fact women were never equal - this was all coincidence/luck that brought them into their power.

One of the main points of this book is that the rise of modernity was built on Africa and Africans. A very serious, multi-faceted, and well-written argument, but I keep being reminded of the British Things song from Horrible Histories, which makes a sort-of similar basic point in a vastly different tone (and complexity level). But seriously, I am enjoying the book, earworms aside. https://youtu.be/sb56cMQEflA?si=YpzOCmbGrxceB6m0

#firstlinefridays

#BookedInTime

Shout out to @AllDebooks for suggesting Africa as a location.

Research led me to these books. The only one I‘m familiar with is Cry Freedom. They all seemed really good. I think I will be choosing Cry, the Beloved Country.