So I had a bunch of highlights made in the e-book, then I synced my Kindle by accident and lost the book because my loan period from the library had expired. Sigh...
Anyway, this was a great book, although it backtracked a couple times to explain events from a new perspective and I found it confusing until I remembered who it was talking about. As evidenced by the title, the book focuses on women who were in and out of D.C. during the period before, during, and after the Civil War.
Let it not be said that women didn't have an influence on American politics in the past; it actually reminds me of a discussion point raised with a friend about A Song of Ice and Fire series (and/or Game of Thrones) characters Cersei Lannister and Margaery Tyrell - a woman who tries to achieve power through masculine actions, as a woman, and is reviled, versus a woman who achieves power through feminine actions, and is publicly adored.
Although there's no throne in the U.S., there is certainly a White House and various other political aims to be won. A number of women profiled in the book were successful in their goals. Some weren't. The epilogues were interesting in how they revealed how the public remembered these women several decades later and were a good contrast point to how they are viewed now; that is, who even knows about them except people like me who have read a book like this?
2
0
