Queens of Jerusalem
Queens of Jerusalem

Author: Katherine Pangonis

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Published: 2021-02-18

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1474614108

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In 1187 Saladin's armies besieged the holy city of Jerusalem. He had previously annihilated Jerusalem's army at the battle of Hattin, and behind the city's high walls a last-ditch defence was being led by an unlikely trio - including Sibylla, Queen of Jerusalem. They could not resist Saladin, but, if they were lucky, they could negotiate terms that would save the lives of the city's inhabitants. Queen Sibylla was the last of a line of formidable female rulers in the Crusader States of Outremer. Yet for all the many books written about the Crusades, one aspect is conspicuously absent: the stories of women. Queens and princesses tend to be presented as passive transmitters of land and royal blood. In reality, women ruled, conducted diplomatic negotiations, made military decisions, forged alliances, rebelled, and undertook architectural projects. Sibylla's grandmother Queen Melisende was the first queen to seize real political agency in Jerusalem and rule in her own right. She outmanoeuvred both her husband and son to seize real power in her kingdom, and was a force to be reckoned with in the politics of the medieval Middle East. The lives of her Armenian mother, her three sisters, and their daughters and granddaughters were no less intriguing. The lives of this trailblazing dynasty of royal women, and the crusading Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, are the focus of Katherine Pangonis's debut book. In QUEENS OF JERUSALEM she explores the role women played in the governing of the Middle East during periods of intense instability, and how they persevered to rule and seize greater power for themselves when the opportunity presented itself.

Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan
Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan

Author: Ruby Lal

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2018-07-03

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 0393635406

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Finalist for the 2018 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History "A luminous biography." —Rafia Zakaria, Guardian Four centuries ago, a Muslim woman ruled an empire. Nur Jahan, daughter of a Persian noble and widow of a subversive official, became the twentieth and most cherished wife of the Emperor Jahangir. Nur ruled the vast Mughal Empire alongside her husband, leading troops into battle, signing imperial orders, and astutely handling matters of the state. Acclaimed historian Ruby Lal uncovers the rich life and world of Nur Jahan, rescuing this dazzling figure from patriarchal and Orientalist clichés of romance and intrigue, and giving new insight into the lives of women and girls in the Mughal Empire. In Empress, Nur Jahan finally receives her due in a deeply researched and evocative biography that awakens us to a fascinating history.

Muslim Women, Reform and Princely Patronage
Muslim Women, Reform and Princely Patronage

Author: Siobhan Lambert-Hurley

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2007-01-24

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 113414346X

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This is a new and engaging examination of the emergence of a Muslim women’s movement in India. The state of Bhopal, a Muslim principality in central India, was ruled by a succession of female rulers throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, most notably the last Begam of Bhopal, Nawab Sultan Jahan Begam. Siobhan Lambert-Hurley puts forward the importance for early Muslim female activists to balance continuity and innovation. By operating within the framework of Islam, these women built on traditional norms in order to introduce incremental change in terms of veiling, female education, marriage, motherhood and women's political rights. For the first time, this book analyzes the role of the ‘daughters of reform', the first generation of Muslim women who contributed to the reformist discourse, particularly at the regional level. Based on numerous primary sources in Urdu, including the tracts, books, reports, letters and journal articles of Sultan Jahan Begam and the other women of Bhopal along with official records such as the reports of early organizations and institutions in the Bhopal State, the author sheds light on an important part of India’s history.

Rejected Princesses
Rejected Princesses

Author: Jason Porath

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2016-10-25

Total Pages: 653

ISBN-13: 0062405381

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Blending the iconoclastic feminism of The Notorious RBG and the confident irreverence of Go the F**ck to Sleep, a brazen and empowering illustrated collection that celebrates inspirational badass women throughout history, based on the popular Tumblr blog. Well-behaved women seldom make history. Good thing these women are far from well behaved . . . Illustrated in a contemporary animation style, Rejected Princesses turns the ubiquitous "pretty pink princess" stereotype portrayed in movies, and on endless toys, books, and tutus on its head, paying homage instead to an awesome collection of strong, fierce, and yes, sometimes weird, women: warrior queens, soldiers, villains, spies, revolutionaries, and more who refused to behave and meekly accept their place. An entertaining mix of biography, imagery, and humor written in a fresh, young, and riotous voice, this thoroughly researched exploration salutes these awesome women drawn from both historical and fantastical realms, including real life, literature, mythology, and folklore. Each profile features an eye-catching image of both heroic and villainous women in command from across history and around the world, from a princess-cum-pirate in fifth century Denmark, to a rebel preacher in 1630s Boston, to a bloodthirsty Hungarian countess, and a former prostitute who commanded a fleet of more than 70,000 men on China’s seas.

Women and the Making of the Mongol Empire
Women and the Making of the Mongol Empire

Author: Anne F. Broadbridge

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-07-18

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 1108636624

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How did women contribute to the rise of the Mongol Empire while Mongol men were conquering Eurasia? This book positions women in their rightful place in the otherwise well-known story of Chinggis Khan (commonly known as Genghis Khan) and his conquests and empire. Examining the best known women of Mongol society, such as Chinggis Khan's mother, Hö'elün, and senior wife, Börte, as well as those who were less famous but equally influential, including his daughters and his conquered wives, we see the systematic and essential participation of women in empire, politics and war. Anne F. Broadbridge also proposes a new vision of Chinggis Khan's well-known atomized army by situating his daughters and their husbands at the heart of his army reforms, looks at women's key roles in Mongol politics and succession, and charts the ways the descendants of Chinggis Khan's daughters dominated the Khanates that emerged after the breakup of the Empire in the 1260s.

The British in India
The British in India

Author: David Gilmour

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2018-11-13

Total Pages: 641

ISBN-13: 0374713243

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An immersive portrait of the lives of the British in India, from the seventeenth century to Independence Who of the British went to India, and why? We know about Kipling and Forster, Orwell and Scott, but what of the youthful forestry official, the enterprising boxwallah, the fervid missionary? What motivated them to travel halfway around the globe, what lives did they lead when they got there, and what did they think about it all? Full of spirited, illuminating anecdotes drawn from long-forgotten memoirs, correspondence, and government documents, The British in India weaves a rich tapestry of the everyday experiences of the Britons who found themselves in “the jewel in the crown” of the British Empire. David Gilmour captures the substance and texture of their work, home, and social lives, and illustrates how these transformed across the several centuries of British presence and rule in the subcontinent, from the East India Company’s first trading station in 1615 to the twilight of the Raj and Partition and Independence in 1947. He takes us through remote hill stations, bustling coastal ports, opulent palaces, regimented cantonments, and dense jungles, revealing the country as seen through British eyes, and wittily reveling in all the particular concerns and contradictions that were a consequence of that limited perspective. The British in India is a breathtaking accomplishment, a vivid and balanced history written with brio, elegance, and erudition.

Memoirs of a Rebel Princess
Memoirs of a Rebel Princess

Author: Abida Sultaan

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13:

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Memoirs Of Abida Sultan-Daughter Of Nawab Of Bhopal And Heir Apparent To Him, She Decided To Migrate To Pakistan. Part I Relates To India And Part Ii Covers Pakistan. 8 Chapters In All-An Appendix Gives A Brief History Of Bhopal.

In Another Country
In Another Country

Author: Priya Joshi

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2002-04-24

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 0231500904

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In a work of stunning archival recovery and interpretive virtuosity, Priya Joshi illuminates the cultural work performed by two kinds of English novels in India during the colonial and postcolonial periods. Spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, readers and writers, empire and nation, consumption and production, In Another Country vividly explores a process by which first readers and then writers of the English novel indigenized the once imperial form and put it to their own uses. Asking what nineteenth-century Indian readers chose to read and why, Joshi shows how these readers transformed the literary and cultural influences of empire. By subsequently analyzing the eventual rise of the English novel in India, she further demonstrates how Indian novelists, from Krupa Satthianadhan to Salman Rushdie, took an alien form in an alien language and used it to address local needs. Taken together in this manner, reading and writing reveal the complex ways in which culture is continually translated and transformed in a colonial and postcolonial context.