Author Julie Gilbert Discusses the Writing of Her New Book ‘Giant Love’
Julie Gilbert Today, we delve into the enduring relevance of the themes explored by Pulitzer Prize -winning author Edna Ferber
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Tomyris, warrior queen of the Massagetae tribespeople (here celebrated centuries later later) is but one of the classical figures celebrated by the historian Daisy Dunn THE MISSING THREAD: A Women’s History of the Ancient World , by Daisy Dunn Feminist retellings of classical myth and history are having a moment . This is partly a publishing-industry trend, but also the result of a real thirst for stories about women in the ancient world, women whose lives have long been ignored or were never recorded in the first place. The classical historian Daisy Dunn’s new work, “The Missing Thread,” is a thoroughly researched and sprightly attempt to tell that history: the full version, insofar as we can know it, of the Mediterranean world from the Minoan civilization to the early Roman Empire. As Dunn explains, her work isn’t intended as a study of women alone but rather as a complete history of the period with the women added back in, as they always should have been. Credit…. Like many classical historians, Dunn began her career mostly writing about men. Her first book was a delightful biography of Catullus, followed by a translation of his works; she has also written a double biography of the elder and younger Plinys. When it comes to the important men of the ancient world, there are simply many more available sources, and much of what we do know about the lives of women was written by men. This leads to interesting ironies; most women of classical Athens were effectively imprisoned in their homes, while men wrote and acted in plays about sympathetic, competent and terrifying ladies. “It did not always occur to men,” Dunn dryly comments, “that real women might be up to something just as interesting.” According to Dunn, they were up to just about everything. Much depends on the particularities of any given culture at any point in time; and much also depends on the interpretation of the evidence. The prevalence of women in Minoan art suggests that Crete was possibly matriarchal, or at least egalitarian. Among the Scythians, some women were buried […]
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Julie Gilbert Today, we delve into the enduring relevance of the themes explored by Pulitzer Prize -winning author Edna Ferber
The Mallorcan Joana Marcús is a young bestseller in Spain and America, writer of young adult novels with a romantic
