Queens Of Conquest: Ruthless Female Rulers History Was Afraid

They conquered empires, defied gods, and rewrote history. And then history tried to erase them.Queens of Conquest tells the stories of twelve of the most powerful women who ever lived - rulers whose military genius, political brilliance, and iron will shaped the ancient and medieval world, yet whose names were systematically buried, distorted, or reduced to myth by the men who came after them.Wu Zetian governed China as emperor for fifteen years and built the civil service system that lasted fifteen centuries. Tomyris of the Scythians defeated and killed Cyrus the Great - the most powerful conqueror of the ancient world - after warning him exactly what would happen if he didn't retreat. Amanitore of Nubia repelled the Roman army and built temples that still stand. Zenobia of Palmyra conquered Egypt and challenged Rome for two years before the emperor himself had to march against her. Æthelflæd of Mercia built the fortified towns and won the battles that made England possible - and was written out of the story by the men who inherited what she built.This book does not sanitise these women or turn them into symbols. It reads their stories through the actual evidence - the coins, the temple reliefs, the administrative records, the legal codes - and asks what the record shows when the propaganda is stripped away. What it shows is rulers: capable, complex, sometimes ruthless, always real.For readers of Mary Beard, Bettany Hughes, and Ada Calhoun. For anyone who has ever wondered what history left out.

Pagina's: 178, Paperback, Independently published