1. Andrew Curry, “Slaughter at the Bridge,” Science, Vol. 25, #351 (March 2016), pp. 1384–1389.
2. For background on the Sea Peoples, see Neil Silberman, “The Coming of the Sea Peoples,” MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Vol. 10, #2 (Winter 1998), pp. 6–13. The author indicates how the chariot, the main weapon for the Mediterranean basin for hundreds of years, was superseded by lightly armed infantry known as the Sea Peoples that swept out of the Balkans and caused the “Great Catastrophe” (although it was not a catastrophe for them) and Peter Tsouras, “Bronze Age Cataclysm: The Collapse of the Civilized Near East,” Strategy and Tactics, #315 (March–April 2019), pp. 42–51. Silberman, an analyst at the U.S. Army’s Intelligence and Threat Center in Washington, examines how the major powers of the area (with the exception of Egypt) and their reliance on chariots were swept away by the Sea Peoples and their newly specialized infantry weapons and tactics. This phenomenon shows how receptivity to innovation is the key to military success over time. Additional useful information on the Sea Peoples is also to be found in Eric Cline, “Raiders of the Lost Bronze Age,” MHQ: The Quarterly of Military History, Vol. 28, #1 (Autumn 2015), pp. 66–75. Cline sees the Sea Peoples as perhaps initially victims turning to conquest out of desperation and hope for martial supremacy elsewhere.
3. Wayne Lee, “When Did Warfare Begin?,” MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Vol. 27, #2 (Winter 2015), pp. 64–71. Others take a more benign interpretation of Neanderthal/Homo sapiens interaction. See, for example, Rebecca Wragg Sykes, Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art (New York: Blooms-bury Sigma, 2020). Perhaps we are on firmer ground with the statement of Trevor Watkins, “The origins of warfare are hidden in the mists of human prehistory, but by 1200 BC there was a long tradition of armies, campaigns, pitched battles and siege warfare” (p. 15) in his “The Beginnings of Warfare” in John Hackett, Warfare in the Ancient World (New York: Facts on File, 1989), pp. 15–35.
4. Nichols Longrich, “The Conversation,” November 3, 2020. See also Robert O’Connell, “The Origins of War,” MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Vol. 1, #3 (Spring 1999), pp. 8–15.
5. Mahabharata (trans. By John Smith) (New York: Penguin Classics, 2009), CXXIV. Much of what we know about Aryan chariot warfare comes from the Mahabharata. For an examination of war during Vedic times, see Richard Gabriel, “Armies of Ancient India: Vedic and Imperial Periods,” in his The Great Armies of Antiquity (Westport: Praeger, 2002), pp. 207–224.
6. Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, Book Four (3.84.1).
7. Homer, (trans. by Robert Fagles) The Iliad (New York: Penguin Books, 1990). See especially “The Death of Achilles.”
8. James Holoka (ed. and trans.), Simone Weil’s The Iliad, or the Poem of Force: A Critical Edition (New York: Peter Lang, 2006), p. 45.
9. Many of the arguments against war per se and the notion that it can and must be resisted can be found in Robert Gonzalez, Hugh Gusterson, and Gustaaf Houtman (eds.), Militarization: A Reader (Durham: Duke University Press, 2019). This work contains stimulating essays by Dwight Eisenhower, Margaret Mead, Noel Perrin, Naoko Shibusawa, Leslie Sponsel, and Robert Lifton.
10. Holoka, op. cit, p. 45.
11. John Keegan, A History of Warfare (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1993), p. 76.
12. Margaret MacMillan, War: How Conflict Shaped Us (New York: Random House, 2020), pp. 312, 131.
13. See his “Women of Valor: Why Israel Doesn’t Send Women into Combat,” Policy Review (Fall 1991), pp. 65–67. He amplifies these arguments in, “Armed But Not Dangerous: Women in the Israeli Military,” War in History, Vol. 7, #1 (January 2000), pp. 82–98, “The Great Illusion: Women in the Military,” Journal of International Studies, Vol. 29, #2 (2000), pp. 429–442, Men, Women and War (London: Cassell, 2001), “Warrior-Women of Dahomey,” Militärgeschichtliche Zeitschrift, Vol. 39, #1 (2018), pp. 115–123 and The Culture of War (New York: Ballantine Books, 2008).
14. Nina Liza Bode, The Imaging of Violent Gender Performances, Master’s Thesis (University of Groningen, 2014).
15. Women Peacemaker Program, Gender and Militarism Analyzing the Links to Strategize for Peace (Netherlands: Women Peacemakers Program, 2014), p. 9.
16. Adrian Goldsworthy, Philip and Alexander: Kings and Conquerors (New York: Basic Books, 2020), p. 7.
17. See especially John Lynn, Women Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008) (some of his other works in this genre include, “Women in War,” Military History (October 2001), pp. 60–66, The French Wars 1667–1714 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2002), and “The Strange Case of the Maiden Soldier of Picardy,” MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Vol. 2, #3 (Spring 1990), pp. 54–56, Robert Kaplan, Imperial Grunts and Mark Bowden, “The Huong River Squad” in his Hue, 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam (New York: Random House, 2017). With regard to Bowden’s recent book, think of the thousands of works on the Vietnam War and how few ever highlight the role of women.
18. Alexander Ingle, “Berenice II Euergetes,” Pennington, op. cit., p. 53. For more on her complex dynastic and marital background, see Grace Harriet Macurdy, Hellenistic Queens: A Study of Woman-Power in Macedonia, Seleucid Syria, and Ptolemaic Egypt (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1932), pp. 130–136. For a useful and more recent full-length biography that highlights her many literary and political accomplishments, see Dee Clayman, Berenice II and the Golden Age of Ptolemaic Egypt (London: Oxford University Press, 2014). For the political and economic background of Ptolemaic Egypt, see Andrew Monson, From the Ptolemies to the Romans: Political and Economic Change in Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Note that the term “Hellenistic” is usually defined as the period from the death of Alexander in 323 to the fall of the Ptolemaic dynasty in 30 CE even though Macedonia had long before fallen to the Romans. For a sprightly overview of the Hellenistic world, see Peter Thonemann, The Hellenistic Age (London: Oxford University Press, 2016).
19. Wale Ogunyemi, “Queen Amina of Zazzau,” Play 1959. See also Philip Ko-slow, Hausaland: The Fortress Kingdoms (New York: Chelsea House Press, 1995).
20. Patrick Kagbeni Muana, “Masarico,” in Pennington (ed.), op. cit., pp. 285–286. For a history of the later Sierra Leone colony, see Joe Alie, A New History of Sierra Leone (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990).
21. Stanley B. Alpern, Amazons of Black Sparta: The Women Warriors of Dahomey (New York: New York University Press, 1998), p. 207.
22. Ibid. Another important West Africa warrior woman of note was Orompoto, the 16th-century female Alaafin (king) of the Yoruba remembered for her skillful use of cavalry at the battle of Illayi.
23. Michael Edwardes, Red Year: The Indian Rebellion of 1857 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1973). See also Joyce Libra-Chapman, The Rani of Jhansi: A Study in Female Heroism in India (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986).
24. See especially Sayyid Ahmad-Ullah Qadri, Memoires of Chand Bibi The Princess of Ahmednagar (Hyderabad: The Osmania University Press, 1939). Another Indian women who led from the front was Tarabai Bhonsale (1675–1761), a Maratha Maharani who resisted Mughal incursions and fought on horseback with a cavalry regiment.
25. Stephen Turnbull, Samurai Women 1184–1877 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing Company, 2002), p. 37. Turnbull provides a powerful set of insights into the existence of a little-known female warrior class in this well-illustrated work. See also Royall Tyler, “Tomoe: The Woman Warrior,” in Chieko Irie Mulhern (ed.), Heroic with Grace: Legendary Women of Japan (London: M.E. Sharpe, 1991), and “Death of Lord Kiso,” excerpted from “The Tale of the Heike,” MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Vol. 25, #3 (Spring 2013), pp. 94–97.
26. Aunait Chutintaranond, “Suriyothai in the Context of Thai-Myanmar History and Historical Perception,” in Sunait Chutintaranond and Kanokphan U-sha (eds.), From Fact to Fiction: History of Thai-Myanmar Relations in Cultural Context (Bang-kok: Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University, 1992), pp. 30–41, provides a fulsome and detailed account of the battle, including her bravery and the gruesome details of Suriyothai’s life-ending wounds. See also Irene Stengs, “Dramatising Siamese Independence: Thai Post-colonial Perspectives on Kingship,” in Robert Aldrich and Cindy McCreery (eds.), Monarchies and Decolonization in Asia (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020), p. 274. Pamaree Surakiat, “Thai-Burmese Warfare during the Sixteenth Century and the Growth of the First Toungoo Empire,” Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 93 (2005), pp. 69–100 puts this war in a broader context of the rise of the Toungoo Empire. Further background is provided by Jon Fernquist, “Min-gyi-nyo, the Shan Invasions of Ava (1524–27), and the Beginnings of Expansionary Warfare in Toungoo Burma: 1486–1539,” SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research, Vol. 3, #2 (Autumn 2005), pp. 28–35. Queen Suriyothai and her legendary sacrifice in battle continues to fascinate even today. See Amporn Jirattikorn, “Suriyo-thai: Hybridizing Thai National Identity Through Film,” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Vol. 4, #2 (2003), pp. 296–308.
27. For an in-depth look at Maroon resistance and communities in the Spanish America, the French Caribbean, Jamaica, Brazil, and the Guianas, see Richard Price (ed.), Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1979) and Alvin O. Thompson, Flight to Freedom: African Runaways and Maroons in the Americas (Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press, 2006).
28. Polyaenus, quoted in Paul Chrystal, Women at War in The Classical World (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2017), p. 90. Cynane and her military proclivities are well sourced. Adrian Goldsworthy in his Philip and Alexander: Kings and Conquerors (New York: Basic Books, 2020), p. 535, for example, cites her appearances in Athenaeus, Polyaenus, and Arrian.
29. Charles Walker, The Tupac Amaru Rebellion (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014); Leon Campbell, “Women and the Great Rebellion in Peru, 1780–1783,” The Americas, Vol. 42, #2 (October 1985), pp. 163–196; and Lillian Fisher, The Last Inca Revolt 1780–1783 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966).
30. Asma Lamrabet, Women in the Qur’an: An Emancipatory Reading (Leicester-shire: Square View Press, 2016), p. 19. Readers interested in the rise and success of the Arab armies and the implementation of light horse warfare should consult Robert Hoyland, In God’s Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire (London: Oxford University Press, 2003); Tom Holland, In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire (New York: Doubleday, 2012); and for a broader perspective, Anthony Pagden, Worlds at War: The 2,500-Year Struggle Between East and West (New York: Random House, 2008). For a closer look at the Muslim armies as armies, note the trilogy by David Nicolle, The Armies of Islam 7th–11th Centuries (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 1983), Armies of the Muslim Conquest (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 1993) and The Moors: The Islamic West 7th–11th Centuries (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2001).
31. For some insights into Arab light horse warfare, see Gabriel, “The Arab Armies 600–850 C.E.” op. cit., pp. 304–314.
32. Thomas B. Marquis, Custer on the Little Big Horn (Algonac: Marquis Custer Publications, 1967), p. 93. See also Rosemary Agonito and Joseph Agonito Buffalo Calf Road Woman (Guilford, CT: TwoDot, 2006) for more on the battle and her role in it. Another Cheyenne woman warrior from this era was Ehyophsta (1826–1915). Also known as Yellow Haired Woman, she fought in the 1868 battle against the U.S. Army at Beecher’s Island and later engaged the Shoshoni on Beaver Creek in 1873, counting coup and killing an opponent. She was subsequently admitted to the Crazy Dog Soldier Warrior society.
Note: For a truly magical in-depth look at Cheyenne warfare during this era, see Father Peter John Powell, People of the Scared Mountain: A History of the Northern Cheyenne Chiefs and Warrior Societies 1830–1879, Vol. I (New York: Harper & Row, 1981). Also interesting background on those who tried to find ways of peace between the whites and the Cheyenne can be found in Louis Kraft, “Between the Army and the Cheyenne,” MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Vol. 14, #2 (Winter, 2002), pp. 48–55.
33. Queen of Tahiti Niel Gunson, “Sacred Women Chiefs and Female ‘Head-man’ in Polynesian History,” Journal of Pacific History, Vol. 22, #3 (1987), pp. 139–172. The author believes that the role of women, both in terms of politics and standing as well as in terms of warriorhood, was submerged by missionaries and early anthropologists and needs to be revised significantly. In Polynesia, “the mana of a great warrior was inherited through his daughter, not a son.” (p. 139). Female head-men were common in Polynesia and “Very often they were known for their prowess in warfare” (p. 142).
34. Debra Hamel, “Ancient Greeks in Drag,” MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Vol. 14, #4 (Summer 2002), pp. 81–89.
35. In terms of longevity of the style of warfare, it is difficult to match the horse archers of the Eurasian steppe regions. See D. V. Cernenko, The Scythians 700–300 BC (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 1983) and R. Brzezinski and M. Mielczarek, The Sarmatians 600 BC—AD 450 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2002). For a closer look at this clash of war cultures in the Greek world and the differing styles, see Gabriel , op. cit., “The Greek Way of War: Classical and Imperial Periods 500–323 B.C.E.,” pp. 171–205.
36. https://www.newswise.com/articles/dna-reveals-2-500-year-old-siberian-warrior-was-a-woman2. Further scientific research is continuing on Scythian DNA material from 4,000 years ago.
37. Megan McLaughlin, “The Woman Warrior: Gender, Warfare and Society in Medieval Europe,” Women’s Studies, Vol. 17, #3–4 (1990), pp. 192–209. This is a seminal work providing as it does a very useful dichotomy of women at war as generals versus women as foot soldiers. Second, the author rightly looks at much of medieval warfare involving the defense of castles as “domestic warfare” and points out the advantages this type of war provides opportunities for women. See also Susan Johns in her Noblewoman, Aristocracy and Power in the Twelfth-Century Anglo-Norman Realm (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003) and Malcolm Hebron, The Medieval Siege: Theme and Image in Middle English Romance (London: Clarendon Press, 1997). For warfare in this era, see Philip Warner, The Medieval Castle: Life in a Fortress in Peace and War (New Noble, 1971); Maurice Keen (ed.) Medieval Warfare (London: Oxford University Press, 1999); Brian Carey, Joshua Allfree and John Cairns, Warfare in the Medieval World (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2006); A. V. B. Norman, The Medieval Soldier (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1999); as well as David Nicolles’s two worthwhile works, European Medieval Tactics (1): The Fall and Rise of Cavalry 450–1250 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2011) and European Medieval Tactics New Infantry, New Weapons 1260–1500 (2) (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2011).
38. Elizabeth Lev, The Tigress of Forli: Renaissance Italy’s Most Courageous and Notorious Countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de ’Medici (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011). See especially chapter 17, “Italy’s Idol,” pp. 216–234.
39. John Lynn, Women, Armies and Warfare in Early Modern Europe, p. 208. For the host of factors militating against those women and many others trying to play military roles, see Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1978).
40. Weiting Guo, “The Portraits of a Heroine: Huang Bamei and the Politics of Wartime History in China and Taiwan, 1930–1960,” Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review, Vol. 33 (2019), pp. 6–31.
41. Loreta Velasquez, The Woman in Battle: A Narrative of the Exploits, Adventures, and Travels of Madame Loreta Janeta Velazquez, Otherwise Known as Lieutenant Harry T. Buford, Confederate States Army (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004, reprint of 1872 edition).
42. Nadezhda Durova, The Cavalry Maiden: Journals of Russian Officer in the Napoleonic Wars (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988).
43. Flora Sandes, An English Woman-Sergeant in the Serbian Army (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1917).
44. Jessica Trisko Darden, Alexis Henshaw and Ora Szekely, Insurgent Women: Female Combatants in Civil Wars (Georgetown: Georgetown University Press, 2019), p. 78.
45. See especially Tsehai Berhane Silassie, “Women Guerrilla Fighters,” Northeast African Studies, Vol. 1, #3 (Winter 1979–1980), pp. 73–83. Documents the activities of important female guerrillas. Points out that in feudal Ethiopian society, their military leadership status depended on their existing landholdings (derived from their dead fathers or husbands). The author often helpfully quotes the women’s fighting in their own words. See Jeff Pearce, Prevail: The Inspiring Story of Ethiopia’s Victory over Mussolini’s Invasion, 1935–1941 (New York: Skyhorse Publications, 2014), and for Ethiopian efforts to pry themselves loose from the South Africans and British, see C. P. Potholm, Liberation and Exploitation: The Struggle for Ethiopia (Lanham: University Press of America, 1976).
46. Maochun Yu, “The Taiping Rebellion,” in David Graff and Robin Higham (eds.), A Military History of China (Boulder: Westview Press, 2003), p. 143.
47. Susan Travers, Tomorrow to be Brave (New York: The Free Press, 2000).
48. Abdelmajid Hannoum, “Historiography, Mythology, and Memory in Modern North Africa: The Story of the Kahina,” Studia Islamica, #85 (1997), pp. 85–130. For a fuller examination of all these issues, see Hannoum’s extensive and useful work, Colonial Histories, Post-Colonial Memories: The Legend of the Kahina North African Heroine (Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2001) and Benjamin Hendrickx, “Al-Kahina: The Last Ally of the Roman-Byzantines in the Maghreb Against the Muslim Arab Conquest?,” Journal of Early Christian History, Vol. 3, #2, pp. 47–61.
49. Quoted in John Belohlavek, Patriots, Prostitutes, and Spies: Women and the Mexican-American War (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2017), p. 65 and elsewhere.
50. Johannes Postma, Slave Revolts (Greenwood Press, 2008), p. 28. Note also that in the New World from 1522 to 1865, according to Holly Norton, Estate by Estate: The Landscape of the 1733 St. Jan Slave Rebellion (Syracuse: Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs Dissertation, 2013), there were 135 slave revolts and the author warns that “this list is not exhaustive” (p. 318).
51. Ibid, p. 26.
52. Gabriela Cano: “Unconcealable Realities of Desire: Amelio Robles’s (Trans-gender) Masculinity in the Mexican Revolution,” in Jocelyn Olcott, Mary Kay Vaughan and Gabriela Cano (eds.), Sex in Revolution: Gender, Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), p. 35–56.
53. Cano, op. cit, p. 43.
54. Ibid., p. 37.
55. Thanks also to Michy Martinez for pointing out two additional soldaderas who transitioned from female during the Mexican Revolution, Angel(a) Jimenez and Maria de la Luz Barrera. For more information on the differing roles (ranging from camp followers, sutlers, fighters, and even commanders) of the soldaderas, see Elena Poniatowska, Las Soldaderas (El Paso: Cinco Puntos Press, 2006).
56. Colonel Barker, The Sunday Dispatch, 31 March 1929, quoted in Julie Wheel-wright, Amazons and Military Maids: Women Who Dressed as Men in the Pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness (London: Pandora, 1989), p. 50. For a further exploration of this theme, see her chapter, “Becoming One of the Boys,” pp. 50ff.
57. John Koster, “The Other Magpie and the Woman Chief Were Crow Warriors of the ‘Weaker Sex,’” Wild West, Vol 26, #1 (June 1913), pp. 24–25. Koster also highlights another Crow woman warrior as well, the companion of The Other Magpie, Finds Them and Kills Them. Finds Them and Kills Them, who is described a “neither a man nor a woman” and who helps The Other Magpie rescue Bull Snake. See also Jerry Matney and D. A. Gordon, Woman War Chief: The Story of a Crow Warrior ( Bloomington: First Books, 2002) and Edwin Denig, “Warrior Woman,” in John Ewens (ed.), Five Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961), pp. 195–201.
58. Rudolf Dekker and Lotte C. van de Pol, The Tradition of Female Transvestism in Early Modern Europe (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989), pp. 63–69.
59. Jonathan Jordan and Emily Jordan, The War Queens: Extraordinary Women Who Ruled the Battlefield (New York: Diversion Books, 2020).
60. Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, eds. Sophie Bourgault and Rebecca Kingston (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2018) and The Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry, ed. Charity Cannon Willard (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999. For an in-depth look at de Pizan’s various political and social theories, see Kate Langdon Forham, The Political Theory of Christine de Pizan (Hampshire: Ashgate 2002). Unfortunately, there is not much here on her military theories and writings. See also the breezy but illuminating National Geographic Profiles, “Christine de Pizan: France’s First Lady of Letters,” in National Geographic History (March/April 2020), pp. 8–11, which highlights her extraordinary life and career and points out that her portrait of Joan of Arc is the only contemporary account we have of “La Purcell.”
61. The Secret History of the Mongols: A Mongolian Epic Chronicle of the Thirteen Century, translated by Igor de Rachewiltz (Boston: Brill, 2004). For a further examination of this fascinating subject, see Jack Weatherford, The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire (New York: Broadway Books, 2010) and especially Ruby Lal, Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan (New York: W. W. Norton, 2018). The 20th wife of the Mogul emperor, Jahangir, Nur led troops in several key battles to rescue her husband after he was captured on the way to Kashmir. While this work is mostly about the rest of her life, the battle stories are well worth a look purely from the point of her as a warrior.
62. For a brief, engaging introduction to Manduhai’s rise, war-making skills and ultimate success, see Jordan and Jordan, “The Year of the Tiger” in their War Queens, op. cit., pp. 84–95. For the Mongol way of war, see Gabriel, “The Mongols 1206–1294,” op. cit., pp. 328–344. It is important to note that the Mongols perfected a “modern” way of war which was not matched until the 19th century in Europe: Christian Potholm, Winning At War, pp. 21–29 and S. R Turnbull, The Mongols (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 1980). To examine the founding of the Mongol empire and legacy, see Frank McLynn, Genghis Khan: His Conquests, His Empire, His Legacy (New York: Da Capo Press, 2015).
63. James W. Hoover, “Holkar, Anilyabhai,” in Reina Pennington (ed.), Amazons to Fighter Pilots, two vols. (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2003), pp. 205–209.
64. Robert Johannsen, To the Halls of the Montezumas (London: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 137.
65. For a helpful look at Assyrian warfare during her rule and beyond, see Richard Gabriel, op. cit., “The Iron Army of Assyria 890–612 B.C.E,” pp. 124–139.
66. Take, for example, Eleanor of Aquitaine who is the subject of hundreds of works. Not surprisingly, married to two kings (Louis VII of France and Henry II of England, the mother of two kings (Richard I and John of England) and the grandmother of another (Henry III), Eleanor of Aquitaine has also been the subject of many dramatic histories and novels. In many of them, the family dynamics of her life have tended to overshadow her serious political and military activities. For a succinct account of these dimensions, see Natalie Forget, “Eleanor of Aquitaine,” in Pennington, Amazons to Fighter Pilots, pp. 140–143, which details her military activities on behalf of her son John, including hiring and leading mercenaries and later, holding out and directing troops during the siege of Mirebeau.
Note: those enjoying fiction about the medieval period will enjoy the novels of Sharon Kay Penman, especially the trilogy dealing with Eleanor and the Plantagenets: When Christ and All His Saints Slept (New York: Ballentine Books, 1995), Time and Chance (New York: Ballentine Books, 2003), and The Devil’s Brood (New York: Putnam’s, 2008). Other works about Eleanor include another trilogy of novels by Elizabeth Chatwick, The Summer Queen (New York: Landmark, 2014), The Autumn Throne (New York: Landmark, 2000), and The Winter Crown (New York: Landmark, 2015) as well as the nonfiction Eleanor of Aquitaine by Sara Cockerill (London: Amberley Publishing, 2020), Alison Weir, Eleanor of Aquitaine (New York: Ballentine Books, 2001), and Marion Meade, Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Biography (New York: Penguin, 1991). A recent work of scholarly note is Sara Cockerill, Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen of France and England, Mother of Empires (Gloucestershire: Amberley, 2019) which allows the reader to sample various conflicting sources and the author’s evaluation of them.
67. Among the more recent and useful of these works include: Kelly DeVries, Joan of Arc: A Military Leader (London: Sutton, 1999); Mary Gordon, Joan of Arc (New York: Viking Penguin, 2002); Kathryn Harrison, Joan of Arc: A Live Transfigured (New York: Doubleday, 2014); Stephen W. Richey, Joan of Arc: The Warrior Saint (Westport: Praeger, 2003); Helen Castor, Joan of Arc: A History (New York: Harper, 2015); and Craig Taylor (editor and translator), Joan of Arc: La Pucelle (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006).
68. See Sherry Robinson, “Lozen” in her Apache Voices (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000), pp. 3–9. Lucia St. Clair Robson has also written an engaging novel about Lozen, Ghost Warrior (New York: Forge Books, 2012), which captures the flavor of the times and her ability to foretell upcoming battle situations.
69. Pat Southern, Empress Zenobia: Palmyra’s Rebel Queen (London: Continuum, 2008); Agnes Carr Vaughan, Zenobia of Palmyra (Garden City: Doubleday, 1967); Rex Winsbury, Zenobia of Palmyra: History, Myth and the Neo-Classical Imagination (London: Duckworth, 2010); Yasmine Zahran, Zenobia: Between Reality and Legend (London: Stacey International, 2010); and Byran Nakamura, “Palmyra and the Roman East,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, Vol. 34, #2 (1993), pp. 133–150. Nakamura most helpfully looks at Zenobia’s rise to power, short reign (270–272 CE) during which she expanded and tried to hold territory in the Levant, Arabia, and Egypt and also analyzes her military forces, a mixture of heavy cavalry, light bowmen, and auxiliaries and how she was fatally hampered by her lack of a large standing army.
70. David Hay, The Military Leadership of Matilda of Canossa 1046–1115 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008) and Catherine Hanley, Matilda: Empress Queen Warrior (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019).
71. Isaac Levine, My Life as Peasant, Officer and Exile: The Life of Maria Bochkareva (New York: Frederick Stokes, 1919).
72. Linda Heywood, Njinga of Angola: Africa’s Warrior Queen (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2017).