William Woods Cotterman

bookshelves: autumn-2013, biography, e-book, history, published-2013, nonfiction, women, net-galley, adventure, ancient-history, archaeology, cover-love, lifestyles-deathstyles, travel
Read from September 28 to 29, 2013

NetGalley: Syracuse University Press: Pub Date Oct 16 2013

Dedication:

To my wife, Kennethe;
My daughters Elizabeth, Kennethe and Dana;
My granddaughters Jennifer, Lauren, Sarah,
Emily, Liliy and Alena;
And my great-granddaughters
Harper, Alexa and Violet
- improbable women all.

Author biography
Contents
List of Maps and Figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction

'Zenobia's Last Look on Palmyra' by Herbert G Schmalz 1888

First up wass Lady Hester Stanhope, an adventurer and would-be archaeologist whose main interest was Ashkelon, which will be a place I shall investigate further as it has such an interesting history.

Next, Lady Ellenborough, Jane Digby, and I must get my hands on some further readings about this female as no matter where when looks for information there is colourful rhetoric surrounding her lifestyle.

Then the lady that I was most interested in from outset, Isabel Burton, wife to the fascinating explorer Richard Burton:

And Gertrude Bell of course, master spy, linguist and the owner of nerves of steel:

Lastly Freya Stark, who I didn't know very much about, which really heightened the interest factor:

All in all this is a lovely book of small biographies of accomplished females who tramped the same piece of earth in different time periods.

Within the blurb for this book it states: the story of each woman’s pilgrimage to Palmyra to pay homage to the warrior queen, which is inaccurate because it would lead a reader to believe that was the only reason these women travelled to Palmyra.

The link has more to do with the combination of vicinity and adventurous spirit yet these more modern women can not really be placed in the same category as Zenobia, who was warrior Queen fighting against invaders and occupiers. This tenuous connection rather flat-lines the basis for this book, however, overall, this is a glorious tribute to some spunky ladies adventuring in the middle east and quite the primer for highlighting areas of further interest.

Cross posted to Betties Books, LibraryThing, aNobii, GoodReads, NetGalley

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