Michael OMara Whats Her Name A History of the World in 70 Lost Women.

by Olivia Meikle, What'sHerName Podcast

What if some of the most iconic lives in human history were, for centuries, forgotten?

From the earliest human civilizations through to the present day, the stories of countless influential women – leaders, artists, warriors, scientists and more – have been ignored, forgotten, or actively suppressed. You've probably not encountered the likes of Fatima al-Fihri (an Islamic World visionary who founded the world's first university), Ching Shih (the most successful pirate in history), or Huda Sha'arawi (a pioneering Egyptian feminist leader, suffragette, nationalist, and founder of the Egyptian Feminist Union), but that's about to change.

In What’s Her Name: A History of the World in 70 Lost Women, authors – and sisters – Olivia Meikle and Katie Nelson weave together the captivating stories of these forgotten figures to tell an alternative, enthralling and deeply researched historical narrative.

A truly global history, What’s Her Name features biographies of incredible women spanning six continents and hundreds of years, from Ancient Egypt and the Roman Empire to imperial China, the Americas and post-war Europe. Drawing on years of study and interviews with dozens of experts, this is a fascinating, thought-provoking look at the trailblazing women you’ve never heard of (but should have).

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Feminism

Hardcover

Published June 20, 2024

Reviews

[Carolyn Whitzman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve just had the pleasure and privilege of reviewing an advance copy of this book. The exact opposite of ‘a sad sack of stories strung together by The Msn about The Man’ (the sassy summary of mainstream history in the introduction). It is, rather, a joyous string of pearls strung together by Two Fantastic Women about 70 Fascinating Women you May Not Have Heard Aboit. Katie Nelson and Olivia Meikle vividly illuminate world herstory across time and over every continent (well, maybe not Antarctica). The stories are full of drama, heroism and hllarity. For Young Adults, and everyone who knows that YA books are often the best books.

[Christine Adler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Refreshing, Enlightening, and Downright Hilarious!

What’s Her Name: A History of the World in 80 Lost Women is a delightfully funny and thought-provoking lens through which to revisit our human history. Like many, I love history but have a hard time wading through the dry tomes so often forced upon us in our education. In this book, the authors refuse to contribute to the “sad sack of stories strung together by The Man about The Man”, instead taking you on a journey to see the parts of our history that were criminally cut from the final edition.

As I read it, each chapter felt like being guided through history by a tour guide who knows all the best spots. I felt as though the authors were just over my shoulders, pointing to parts of history that had been overlooked. They showed me how to question everything, often with hilarious quips sprinkled in, and encouraged me to look at every fact from multiple perspectives.

Refreshingly this book explores new women who are not typically included in the ‘20 Women Who Ever Existed and Did a Thing’ that we’re usually told about. Yes, Marie Curie, Florence Nightingale, and Amelia Earhart et al were all important women, but there are so many others who deserve to have their incredible stories told! Women make up half of the population, why are we not half of the main characters in our story? These authors endeavor to rectify this omission.

But by far my favorite part of this book is how accessible it is. While some can sit and read dry historical text ad nauseum, others, including myself, find it to be a challenge just to sit down and crack open the book, let alone take in the dense paragraphs of facts. Compared to typical history texts, this book is refreshing and engaging. Every page held something new to me, and was presented in a way that felt inviting and open. Their talent of presenting our history as an engaging story is truly showcased on every page in this book.

In short, this book has entertained, enlightened, and encouraged me to think in a way I hadn’t before, and I hope it will bring others the joy it has brought me. Here’s to these 80 women, and to the many more who’s stories are yet untold.

[Chloe · Rating 3 out of 5]

What’s Her Name: A History Of The World In 70 Lost Women is a new history book from the hosts of the What’s Her Name history podcast Katie Nelson and Olivia Meikle.

Starting from the Stone Age and taking us on a historical journey right through to modern day, there’s something for everyone. With the role of women consistently underrepresented in history books, it was great to be introduced to eighty women who have played significant roles in historical events and time periods yet have been largely forgotten by time. I’d only actually heard of two of the eighty women prior to reading so was fascinated by their stories and it was great to see women from all walks of life represented. There is also fantastic imagery to illustrate the points.

I was more engaged with the second half of the book than the first but that’s purely personal preference as my interest generally lies more with modern history than ancient history. It was an easy book to dip in and out of over the course of a few weeks and it did prompt me to enter an internet research hole looking deeper into the stories of some of the women. I would have perhaps liked the further reading lists to have been longer, and shared at the end of each specific section rather than just in a full bibliography at the end.

Unfortunately, there were times when it felt like the information was being dumbed down and explained through pop culture references (such as likening a grand ancient debate to a Facebook fight), as surely that’s the only way the average female brain could understand more complex historical concepts. Whilst on one hand I could understand this as an attempt to make history accessible to a wider range of women, it generally just felt like an insult to female intelligence in what should have been an empowering book written by female historians.

The general tone of the book is very chatty, I’m assuming in an attempt to keep in the tone of the podcast, and this didn’t always work unfortunately. I also didn’t like the use of frequent “what if” and “what do you think happened?” sections. Although a bit of speculation is always good and part of the course with a history book as we don’t know the answer to everything, this took it a bit too far.
I would particularly recommend this book to YA readers interested in history or anyone who wants a non-fiction history book which is easy to dip in and out of.

Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

I have posted my review on my blog www.yourschloe.co.uk

*I received a copy of this book in eBook format via NetGalley in return for this review. All reviews published are completely honest and my own, and are in no way influenced by the gifting opportunity. Thank you to NetGalley, Olivia Meikle & Katie Nelson and Michael O'Mara Limited.

[Megz · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you ever did history in school, you might have felt like the whole thing was a little disjointed - a little bit of patchwork, almost like 50% of it just... disappeared.

Turns out, that 50% consists of the women "tucked into dark, dusty corners" of history.

I thought I was reading a book with several different essays about great women in history - what I got was better: the essays all interlinked! In fact, it was more of a narrative of world history, with a focus on the forgotten women, than simply a series of essays. How I loved it. Suddenly, world history flows. Suddenly, the gaps are filled.

The tone is snarky and enjoyable to read, and the diversity of characters is refreshing. The authors promised forgotten women - and truly, more than 90% of them were truly women I had never heard of. Many of them morally grey, others complex, taking a turn for the despotic after their initial success. The authors don't hold back when the great women they write of, had questionable politics. All are viewed by the same eagle's eye, and treated to the same sharp tongue.

Read it, read it, read it. And if you can get a physical copy: do it!

Thank you to Netgalley and Michael O'Mara for the eARC.

[Anne Herbison · Rating 5 out of 5]

A comprehensive around-the-world and through-time history which puts a number of women we've never heard of in their proper place (an interesting term used both ways). There are disturbingly repetitive accounts of women who have stepped up to replace incompetent men, done great things, then been 'put in their place' (i.e. often executed) because you can't have a woman in charge! And, of course, the country/empire/organisation falls into chaos again. On the whole, however, the book has a positive vibe and a positive outlook.

[Lizzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The ‘women’s history listicle’ is a strangely specific book category, but there have been more and more examples in recent years. It’s a solid concept for a book: write a number of short essays on various female historical figures, stick them in chronological order, voila! I’ve read many of these books, and I’m confident in saying that this is one of the best.

Rather than presenting the various women included as unrelated figures, this book tells a narrative of the whole of human history through the eyes of these women. You can visualise the camera zooming in and out of different parts of the world as we travel through history via 80 different case studies.

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With that in mind, I was particularly impressed by the diversity of the women featured. A very clear effort was made to explore all corners of the globe, and examine how life and expectations for women around the world varied.

In many cases not much was known about the women featured, and I really liked how the authors embraced speculation and the unknown. It was always clear where the evidence for each woman’s life ran dry, and the various fates speculated varied from the likely to the absurd, often with a tongue-in-cheek outlook on history. The tone was often light-hearted, and reminded me a lot of Horrible Histories – just for adults!

This is a welcome addition to any women’s history shelf, celebrating the ordinary and the extraordinary in equal measure.

I received a free copy for an honest review.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting
This book tells the reader the history of the world through the stories of 70 women
I will admit that I have mixed feelings about this book, whilst it was fascinating to learn about some of the women who have changed the world, I think it may work better as the podcast series it was based upon. The women’s stories are only a page or so each and don’t give the reader their full stories, instead just the highlights in how it relates to the world history. I think I would have enjoyed it more if there was more of a focus on the women themselves and not the whole history of the world, tell the story of them instead of making them seem more like anecdotes, only there to pad the narrative
I realise I sound a bit negative in this review so far but this is because I had such high hopes and expectations for this book and it didn’t meet them, but that’s just me and maybe I was aiming too high and being unrealistic. I just found it so sad that for some of the women, I felt I learned a more about them as a result of the photo caption instead of the text but there are still a lot of the women who I found fascinating and would like to learn more about
I would recommend this book to those who enjoy a historical biography type book with a difference, that looks at the world from the other side of the gender gap to normal
Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for allowing me access to this book

[Sifa Poulton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an eARC from the publishers through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. It has not affected my opinions.

WHAT'S HER NAME is a rapid fire tour of human history through the eyes of women often overlooked in the record.

As with all global histories (particularly single volume, sub-300 pages ones), the book has to take a whistle-stop tour through history. Hundreds of years will pass in a few pages, jumping country to country to try an give a general sense of what's going on in that region. This is the standard way (and only way) to approach such an undertaking and WHAT'S HER NAME handles it with casual aplomb.

It covers a fair amount of the world, not just focusing on the West (as can often happen.) I liked that it did bounce between countries to see what was happening in Asia and Africa and South America and the Pacific Islands. So many books promise to be global and then only touch on non-Western countries when the West turns up to invade and conquer.

This is a book that grew out of a podcast and you can tell. There is a very informal style to the writing, like transcriptions from a podcast. It is very colloquial in tone, with "options" for theories ("which one of these reasons do you want to believe?") and lots of rhetorical questions.

In all, it's a fun, informative look at global history from a female perspective.

[Annette Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

What's Her Name by Katie Nelson and Olivia Meikle is a fascinating history read based on the podcast by the same name and hosted by the authors. I chose to read the book because I was intrigued by the promise of hearing the untold stories of women through the ages and I was not disappointed. The book described the lives and cultural impact of approximately 80 women from all around the globe and through time from the earliest recorded human history to the modern day , telling the stories of queens and scientists, warriors and artists in a simple almost conversational style that gives a good overview and invites the reader to dig deeper if they choose. The book is quite light hearted in tone, in keeping with the tone of the podcast that inspired it, but I quite liked it, it made it an inviting book to dip in and out of when I had ten minutes to spare, and it is a book that can be enjoyed just as much in this way as when read from cover to cover. While I was familiar with some of the women discussed there were many that I had never heard of, and so I found myself learning while being entertained, what more could I ask for?
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

[Vicuña · Rating 2 out of 5]

The role of women in history is consistently under represented. I usually welcome any venture which identifies and highlights memorable achievements by women which are unknown. This title had so much potential; exploring 80 women from the Stone Age to South African apartheid. I’m sure that a great deal of work has gone into researching the subjects, but the narrative doesn’t work for me at all. Instead of being informed I’ve found it irritating. There’s a lot of ‘what if’, ‘wouldn’t it be funny’ and other speculative content which is chatty and feels frivolous. I understand it’s based on a podcast and that’s a fact that’s pushed. There are some illustrative plates and a bibliography (limited). The latter is more interesting than some of the content of the book. I didn’t enjoy this title at all.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. I found the mix of humour and information very unbalanced for much of the book, it seemed to fine a good balance about half way through and I enjoyed the second half of the book much more than the first.

I would have liked some references or further reading suggestions for each section. The selected bibliography at the end was very lacking as it didn’t cover all of the women featured. The sections on each woman were about a page long and were more like snippets placed in the context of world history. I would have preferred more focus on the women themselves.

The idea was great, it just wasn’t executed as well as I would have liked.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even though the topic and all historical details were highly interesting, I felt that the way it was presented as a book did not work. It was not pleasant to read. Indeed, it was originally a podcast and it did feel like one. It was difficult to take the "writer" seriously because all the little comments meant orally felt clumsy in the form of a book.
I received a digital copy of this book and I am leaving voluntarily an honest review.

[Bethany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspirational and moving. This book was not what I was expecting. I was expecting a book with fact files about 80 different women with a brief description of her life and impact. Instead this book takes you through history with 80 incredible women which I thought was really clever and different. I liked how you could learn about world history along women and how women were always there even in movements where you only heard about the men.

[Rachel Lawrence · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I loved the premise of this book, and I can tell how much research was put into it, I just personally found it really hard to read. I’ve read a few other historic books about women of history and loved them, just this one I couldn’t quite get through like I did the others, and really can only now that I’ve finished remember the stories of women who I’ve heard about previously or were from my country.

[Emma Porter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny and full of heart, this book is essential for anyone wanting to know more about world history than they teach you in school. I never thought a history book could make me both laugh and cry. Nelson and Meikle tell stories that are interesting and profound while using accessible language that is never boring. Read the book. You won’t regret it.

[Matthew Meikle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had a chance to read an early copy of this book and it was wonderful! A welcome break from the stodgy biographies of the past. The writers focus on storytelling and humor to navigate the reader through the whole history of the world. I wish my history classes growing up were like this.

[Sara Makeham · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an easy read, well written and exactly what you'd expect from Olivia and Katie. I enjoyed the format and the 'choose your own adventure' like quizzes. I am looking forward to more books by these two.