The War Queens: Extraordinary Women Who Ruled the Battlefield
About this audiobook
Father-daughter duo Jonathan and Emily Jordan uncover the ingenious wartime tactics of some of history’s most powerful female leaders across millennia and continents, from the stifling battlefields of ancient Egypt to the frigid waters off the Falkland Islands.
History’s killer queens come in all colors, ages, and leadership styles. Elizabeth Tudor and Golda Meir played the roles of high-stakes gamblers who studied maps with an unblinking, calculating eye. Angola’s Queen Njinga was willing to shed (and occasionally drink) blood to establish a stable kingdom in an Africa ravaged by the slave trade. Caterina Sforza defended her Italian holdings with cannon and scimitar, and Indira Gandhi launched a war to solve a refugee crisis.
From ancient Persia to modern-day Britain, the daunting thresholds these exceptional women had to cross—and the clever, sometimes violent ways in which they overcame them—are evoked in vivid detail by Jordan and Jordan. The narrative sidles up to these war queens in the most dire, tumultuous moments of their reigns and examines the brilliant methods and maneuvers they each used to defend themselves and their people from enemy forces. In the end, we come away with a new awareness of the extraordinary power and potential of women in history who walked through war’s kiln and emerged from the other side—some burnished to greatness, others burned to cinders.
About the author
Jonathan W. Jordan is the author of the award-winning book Lone Star Navy: Texas, the Fight for the Gulf of Mexico, and the Shaping of the American West and the bestselling Brothers, Rivals, Victors: Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, and the Partnership That Drove the Allied Conquest in Europe, and the editor of the Library of Texas edition of To the People of Texas. His writing has appeared in World War II magazine, Armchair General, Military History, WWII History, and MHQ.
Emily Anne Jordan, Jonathan’s daughter, is a debut author, women’s history researcher, and nursing student at the University of Kentucky, where she writes about women’s leadership and researches America’s opioid epidemic.
Hillary Huber is a multiple Audie Award finalist, an Earphones Award winner, and an AudioFile Best Voice. She has recorded over three hundred titles spanning many genres and holds a bachelor's degree in English literature. A voracious reader and listener, she was raised in Connecticut and Hawaii but now splits her time between California and New York.
