100 Must-Read Titles About Women’s History
Compiling this list was an intense privilege, coupled with the pain of knowing that 100 books does not begin to cover the complete history of women in one country, let alone the entire world. I discovered amazing women who worked together or on their own to achieve remarkable things, and who suffered bottomless tragedies. They need to be remembered.
In 1979, the first women’s history conference was held at Sarah Lawrence College. In the 21st century, our history is still overwhelmingly male-centered.
The fact I hadn’t heard of so many of these women before making this list makes me more determined than ever to share the history of women when I can, and to do what is possible to change the perception of history from the deeds of men to the deeds of humans.
Feel free to leave your own favorite women from history in the comments below so we can expand this list past 100, and continue to try and make the voices of women from all times and places heard.
General History
A History of the Wife by Marilyn Yalom
No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women by Estelle Freedman
Women Artists: An Illustrated History by Nancy G. Heller
Women in the Middle Ages: The Lives of Real Women in a Vibrant Age of Transition by Frances & Joseph Gies
Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science – and the World by Rachel Swaby
Nike Is a Goddess: The History of Women in Sports by Lucy Danziger
Feminist Theory
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft
The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by bell hooks
The Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner
The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan
Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
Women, Race, & Class by Angela Y. Davis
Ancient World
Hypatia of Alexandria by Maria Dzielska
The Warrior Queens: The Legends and the Lives of Women Who Have Led Their Nations in War by Antonia Fraser
Daughters of Isis: Women of Ancient Egypt by Joyce Tyldesley
The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future by Riane Eisler
Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years by Elizabeth Wayland Barber
The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World by Adrienne Mayor
Africa
The Female King of Colonial Nigeria: Ahebi Ugbabe by Nwando Achebe
Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation At War by Leymah Gbowee
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
The Queen of Katwe: A Story of Life, Chess, and One Extraordinary Girl’s Dream of Becoming a Grandmaster by Tim Crothers
African Feminism: The Politics of Survival in Sub-Saharan Africa by Gwendolyn Mikell
In Praise of Black Women, Volume 1: Ancient African Queens by Simone Schwarz-Bart, et al.
Australia
The Tin Ticket: The Heroic Journey of Australia’s Convict Women by Deborah J. Swiss
Wise Women of the Dreamtime: Aboriginal Tales of Ancestral Powers by K. Langloh Parker
Caribbean
Slave Women in Caribbean Society: 1650-1832 by Barbara Bush
Women in Caribbean History by Verene Shepherd
Natural Rebels: A Social History of Enslaved Women in Barbados by Hilary McD. Beckles
East Asia
Women of Korea: A History from Ancient Times to 1945 by Yung-Chung Kim
In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom by Yeonmi Park
Sky Train: Tibetan Women on the Edge of History by Canyon Sam
The Voice That Remembers: A Tibetan Woman’s Inspiring Story of Survival by Ama Adhe
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang
The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire by Jack Weatherford
Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady by Laura Tyson Li
Manchu Princess, Japanese Spy: The Story of Kawashima Yoshiko, the Cross-Dressing Spy Who Commanded Her Own Army by Phyllis Birnbaum
Daughters of the Samurai: A Journey from East to West and Back by Janice Nimura
Eastern Europe
Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie
Night Witches: The Amazing Story of Russia’s Women Pilots in WWII by Bruce Myles
Thousands of Roads: A Memoir of a Young Woman’s Life in the Ukrainian Underground During and After World War II by Maria Savchyn Pyskir
Latin America
Dreaming With the Ancestors: Black Seminole Women in Texas and Mexico by Shirley Boteler Mock
Revolutionary Women in Postrevolutionary Mexico by Jocelyn H. Olcott
Isabel Orleans-Bragança: The Brazilian Princess Who Freed the Slaves by James McMurtry Longo
The Mapmaker’s Wife: A True Tale of Love, Murder, and Survival in the Amazon by Robert Whitaker
Searching for Life: The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and the Disappeared Children of Argentina by Rita Arditti
Eva Peron: A Biography by Alicia Dujovne Ortiz
My Invented Country: A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile by Isabel Allende
Women & Guerrilla Movements by Karen Kampwirth
The Country Under My Skin: A Memoir of Love and War by Gioconda Belli
Bananeras: Women Transforming the Banana Unions of Latin America by Dana Franks
I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala by Rigoberta Menchu
Middle East
Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia by Jean Sasson
Palestinian Women of Gaza and the West Bank by Suha Sabbagh
Golda by Elinor Burkett
The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan by Jenny Nordberg
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi
South Asia
Humanizing the Sacred: Sisters in Islam and the Struggle for Gender Justice in Malaysia by Azza Basarudin
The Bandit Queen of India: An Indian Woman’s Amazing Journey from Peasant to International Legend by Phoolan Devi
It’s Always Possible: One Woman’s Transformation of India’s Prison System by Kiran Bedi
White Saris and Sweet Mangoes: Aging, Gender, and Body in North India by Sarah Lamb
Borders and Boundaries: How Women Experienced the Partition of India by Ritu Menon
The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan by Rafia Zakaria
Undaunted: My Struggle for Freedom and Survival in Burma by Zoya Phan
Wives, Slaves, and Concubines: A History of the Female Underclass in Dutch Asia by Eric Jones
South Pacific
Amazons of the Huk Rebellion: Gender, Sex, and Revolution in the Philippines by Vina A. Lanzona
From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaii by Haunani-Kay Trask
US/Canada
The Myth of Seneca Falls by Lisa Tetrault
Women on Ice: The Early Years of Women’s Ice Hockey in Western Canada by Wayne Norton
Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth Century America by Lillian Faderman
Identity by Design: Tradition, Change, and Celebration in Native Women’s Dresses
Louise Pound: The 19th Century Iconoclast Who Forever Changed America’s Views About Women, Academics, and Sports by Marie Krohn
Good Time Girls of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush by Lael Morgan
In the Days of Our Grandmothers: A Reader in Aboriginal Women’s History in Canada
The Scarlet Sisters: Sex, Suffrage, and Scandal in the Gilded Age by Myra MacPherson
Discarded Legacy: Politics and Poetics in the Life of Frances E.W. Harper by Melba Joyce Boyd
Rad American Women A-Z by Kate Schatz and Miriam Klein Stahl
America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines by Gail Collins
Walking in the Sacred Manner: Healers, Dreamers, and Pipe Carriers–Medicine Women of the Plains by Mark St. Pierre
Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States by Alice Kessler-Harris
Daughters of the Earth: The Lives and Legends of American Indian Women by Carolyn Niethammer
Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race, Sex, and Violence in America by Kali Nicole Gross
Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence by Carol Berkin
Pretty-shield: Medicine Woman of the Crows by Frank Linderman
Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic by Jennifer Niven
A Jury of Her Peers: Celebrating American Women from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx by Elaine Showalter
Far More Terrible for Women: Personal Accounts of Women in Slavery
The Belles of New England: The Women of the Textile Mills and the Families Whose Wealth They Wove by William Moran
Open Wide the Freedom Gates: A Memoir by Dorothy Height
Western Europe
Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World by Catalina De Erauso
Ravensbrück: Life and Death in Hitler’s Concentration Camp for Women by Sarah Helm
The Winter Queen: Elizabeth of Bohemia by Carola Oman
The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman by Nancy Marie Brown
Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution by Caroline Weber
Sophie Scholl and the White Rose by Annette Dumbach & Jud Newborn
The Pope’s Daughter: The Extraordinary Life of Felice della Rovere by Caroline Murphy
Isabella: The Warrior Queen by Kirstin Downey
She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth by Helen Castor
