Showing titles in Women

Normal Women is a radical retelling of our nation’s story – not of the rise and fall of kings and the occasional queen – but of social and cultural change, powered by the determination, persistence and effectiveness of women – from 1066 to modern times. Did women really do nothing to shape England’s culture and traditions in nine centuries of turmoil, plague, famine, religious reform and the rise of empire and industry?

Brought to you by Penguin. REVEALED FOR THE FIRST TIME: THE TRUE STORY OF THE DECEPTION OF PRINCESS DIANA The death of Princess Diana in August 1997 was one of the most shocking events in recent history. Many events surrounding the tragedy have been shrouded in mystery, in particular the BBC...

Brought to you by Penguin. We like to think of the modern ‘sex positive’ movement as being a radical break from the past; that we are finally sorting out the repression and denial of women’s sexual pleasure that has restricted us throughout history. But women demanding better sex did not...

Let Sandi Toksvig guide you on an eclectic meander through the calendar, illuminating neglected corners of history to tell tales of the fascinating figures you didn't learn about at school. From popes who gave birth during papal processions, to the inventor of Scrabble, to pioneering civil rights activist Ida B. Wells, who refused to give up her seat on a train decades before Rosa Parks was born. As witty and entertaining as it is instructive, this is an essential companion to each day of the year.

From the bedrooms of powerful men, we're bringing you the secret histories of their mistresses, concubines and courtesans. In this funny, fascinating, and scandal-filled podcast, Jameela Jamil and historian Dr Kate Lister pore over the stories of six astonishing "other women". Women who have been shamed, disparaged and underestimated. Some have been cheated out of the history books altogether. Now Jameela and Kate are placing their stories in the spotlight – to see what history looks like through the eyes of the so-called side-chick.

The imprisonment and execution of Queen Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second wife, in 1536 was unprecedented in English history and never before has there been a book devoted entirely to her fall. But here Alison Weir has reassessed the evidence and created a richly researched and detailed portrait of the last days of one of the most influential and important figures in English history.

Throughout the 20th century, the infamous 'Crippen murder' was told in such a way as to cast doubt on Crippen's guilt and to victim-blame his wife Cora, a music hall actress, for her own murder. It also astonishingly depicted Crippen's younger mistress Ethel as innocent of any involvement in the killing of her love rival. Not so, says Rubenhold. In fact, Ethel got away with murder, and the same Edwardian beliefs about women that demonised his wife also blinded society to Ethel's guilt.

This is the incredible story of Elzbieta Zawacka, the WW2 female resistance fighter known as Agent Zo, told here for the very first time. Agent Zo was the only woman to reach London from Warsaw during the Second World War as an emissary of the Polish Home Army command, and then in Britain she became the only woman to join the Polish elite Special Forces, known as the 'Silent Unseen'. She was secretly trained in the British countryside, and then the only female member of these SOE affiliated forces to be parachuted back behind enemy lines to Nazi-occupied Poland.

Throughout history, women have played integral roles in family, society, religion, government, war - in short, in all aspects of human civilization. Their contributions have often shaped history and shifted the axis of power for later generations of women. And yet, unearthing their stories from the historical record has often been a challenge. In Powerful Women of the Medieval World, Professor Dorsey Armstrong will introduce you to 10 amazing women who played vital roles in the Middle Ages.

Queen Elizabeth II was famous for longer than anyone who has ever lived. When people spoke of her, they spoke of themselves; when they dreamed of her, they dreamed of themselves. She mirrored their hopes and anxieties. To the optimist, she seemed an optimist; to the pessimist, a pessimist; to the awestruck, charismatic; and to the cynical, humdrum. Though by nature reserved and unassuming, her presence could fill presidents and rock gods with terror. For close to a century, she inhabited the psyche of a nation.

The lives of the three daughters of Lord Curzon: glamorous, rich, independent and wilful. Irene (born 1896), Cynthia (b. 1898) and Alexandria (b.1904) were the three daughters of Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India 1898-1905 and probably the grandest and most self-confident imperial servant Britain ever possessed. After the death of his fabulously rich American wife in 1906, Curzon's determination to control every aspect of his daughters' lives, including the money that was rightfully theirs, led them one by one into revolt against their father.

These are the stories of the female kings: women who risked everything, sometimes unwillingly, to find their place in a man's world. From the lush oases of Ancient Egypt to the cherry blossomed lands of Japan, the machinations of the Tudor court to the far reaches of Pacific Island kingdoms, Women Who Ruled the World is an expansive and comprehensive history of female royal power.

To many Queen Victoria was a ruler shrouded in myth and mystique, portrayed as an aging, stiff widow. But in truth Britain’s longest-reigning monarch was passionate, expressive, humorous, and unconventional. A. N. Wilson’s exhaustively researched and definitive biography includes a wealth of new material from previously unseen sources, showing us Queen Victoria as she’s never been seen before.

Salem, King James VI, Malleus Maleficarum. The world of witch hunts and witch trials sounds antiquated, relics of an unenlightened and brutal age. However, 'witch hunt' is heard often in the present-day media, and the misogyny it is rooted in is all too familiar today. A woman was prosecuted under the 1735 Witchcraft Act as recently as 1944. This book uses thirteen significant trials to explore the history of witchcraft and witch hunts.

'A great accomplishment . . . A wonderful reflection of an extraordinary sweep of history' Barack Obama Timely, intimate and important, the long-awaited memoirs from one of the most influential leaders of our times For 16 years, Angela Merkel was Chancellor of Germany. She led the country...

On March 25, 1942, nearly a thousand young, unmarried Jewish women boarded a train in Poprad, Slovakia. Filled with a sense of adventure and national pride, they left their parents' homes wearing their best clothes and confidently waving good-bye. Believing they were going to work in a factory for a few months, they were eager to report for government service. Instead, the young women - many of them teenagers - were sent to Auschwitz.

This is a neglected history. No attempt at a sweeping, definitive, exhaustive history of the world but something quieter, more intimate and particular, told by Annabelle Hirsch through her selection of 101 objects, and now brought thrillingly alive for you by a chorus of 101 remarkable women in this ground-breaking audio release.

For centuries, the most beautiful, able and aristocratic women in England competed for positions at court. Some who came to serve were remarkable for their learning and exemplary virtue, but others were notable for promiscuity and lack of scruple, drawn to court by a lust for money and power. Several ladies-in-waiting became royal mistresses, showing few qualms about betraying the queen consorts they ostensibly served.

Every queen had ladies-in-waiting. Her confidantes and chaperones, they are the forgotten agents of the Tudor court. Ever present and yet hidden behind the scenes, these women held the secrets and the hearts of some of the Tudor period's most powerful men and women. Experts at survival, negotiating the competing demands of their families and their queen, the ladies-in-waiting of Henry VIII's wives were far more than decorative 'extras': they were serious political players who changed the course of history, and four of them became queen themselves.

In 1917, as a war raged across the world, young American women flocked to work, painting watches, clocks, and military dials with a special luminous substance made from radium. It was a fun job, lucrative and glamorous - the girls themselves shone brightly in the dark, covered head to toe in the dust from the paint. They were the radium girls. As the years passed, the women began to suffer from mysterious and crippling illnesses. The very thing that had made them feel alive was in fact killing them.