Six legendary queens of Egypt spanned the course of a civilization that lasted over 3,000 years. From the time before the pyramids to Cleopatra’s last stand at Actium, Egypt continues to fascinate. Kara Cooney explores the lives of these six women: Merneith, Neferusobek, Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, Tawosret and Cleopatra. Each of them shaped the world’s first complex civilization in their own way. Some were thrust into positions of power when their male lineage died out—a consequence of royal inbreeding. Others seized power for themselves and refused to let it go.
Egyptologist Kara Cooney has written a richly detailed and fascinating account. But ultimately, I found it jarring. Cooney frequently interrupts her own well-written passages with flashes forward to the present day, where she makes comparisons to the rank of women in ancient Egypt to twenty-first century America. The number of times she alluded to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was mind-bending. It interrupted the natural progression of the story of Egypt through the eyes of these six women.
But the interruption to the flow of the narrative aside, this is a fascinating read for anyone interested in ancient Egypt’s women. It’s enough to whet your appetite without going into overwrought detail. If you’re looking for more in-depth accounts of some of these fascinating women, Cooney’s The Woman Who Would Be King, a novel of Hatshepsut’s rise to power, or Stacy Schiff’s Cleopatra: A Life, are both excellent and informative reads.
