How Much Did It Cost?

It’s been the kind of writing day where I chase peripheral ideas, as easily distracted as a puppy that sees its own wagging tail–though hopefully more productive.* A section on the nature of queenship led me first into the Japanese Shogunate and then into the double bind of women’s voices in politics. Several (hopefully) fascinating…

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In Which I Straddle Two Stories

One of the unexpected benefits of writings more than one thing at a time, set in different times and/or places, is that you stumble across the places where the stories hook up. It always gives me a zing of pleasure to see the relationship between the Crusades and Henry the so-called Navigators’s explorations. Or to…

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Stamping Out Women Warriors–In A Good Way

In the course of doing the research for this book on women warriors, I’ve found plenty of attempts to write women warriors out of history.*  It doesn’t make me happy,** but I expected it. What I didn’t expect were the number of women warriors whose countries later embraced them as national heroines and celebrated them…

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