Six Queens who would be kings:

The women in these pages—Merneith, Neferusobek, Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, Tawosret, and Cleopatra—together form a mighty epic that ends in tragedy: not because they failed (in fact, some were extraordinarily successful, saving their land and their dynasty), but because they are remembered as failures or have been forgotten, expunged from reliefs and statues.

Dr. Cooney writes a history that is pieced together from fragments, her work, speculation, for sure, and research of others - her Notes section is extensive, detailed, and she properly cites the end notes in her text (so refreshing to see proper annotation that isn't a surprise after the reading is done: oh look! some notes! oooh, and they have page numbers and paragraph fragments...a shame the author didn't see fit to let me know while I was reading that there were additional notes...yeah, she didn't do that; and the tiny superscripts didn't get in the way; anyway...)

The backgrounds of what is known about each period are important and Dr. Cooney frames her narrative with much, as the information on some of these queens is sparser than historians would like. I do appreciate Dr. Cooney using the right language, too, when speculation is the only possible reconstruction: "probably", "may have", "would have".

There must have been other sons of Thutmose I alive when Thutmose II died who could have served on the throne of their dead brother. Many other hereditary monarchies would have followed this course instead. But not the ancient Egyptians.
The Egyptians had already created a complicated set of mythologies to grapple with exactly this kind of succession problem. You will remember that Osiris, king of Egypt, was murdered by his brother Seth before his time. His young son Horus was not mature enough to take control of Egypt on his own. The dead king’s brother Seth made his claim to the throne, while Isis, the boy’s mother, retreated with Horus into the marshes, protecting him from the many assassination attempts launched against him.

And I like her grit.

Why are we so hostile to female rule yesterday and today, so rancorous to female ambition for power? How does that aversion take shape? Because we are not just talking about Cleopatra, Nefertiti, and Tawosret, but also Hillary Clinton, Angela Merkel, Margaret Thatcher, Theresa May, and Elizabeth Warren—all of whom have been discredited as erratic, drama-prone, inconstant, deceitful, opaque, flighty, illogical, even evil, ruled only by hot flashes and full moons.
I have been teaching a class at UCLA called "Women and Power in the Ancient World" for four years. In 2017, for the first time, I didn’t have to convince my 200 undergraduate students of gender disparity. [...] But the 2016 U.S. presidential election revealed a visceral opposition toward women in power that did all the explaining for me. In 2017, the revelations of sexual harassment and sexual assault against women by scores of powerful men in America brought the imbalance of power between the sexes into even starker relief. It’s gotten personal. And nasty. Misogyny now has a face, but we avoid looking directly at its smudged, dirty visage as much as possible.

And

Men don’t suffer as many mood swings as women in a given day—but, then again, which gender commits the most violence and murder in human society? Which gender yields the most suicide bombers? Which gender is the most common serial killer? Which is more active in fomenting and continuing war? The answer is obvious and demands that we turn our perception of female emotionality on its head.

Well, Dr. Cooney writes good books and I plan to check out her one on Hatshepsut (plus I pre-ordered "The Good Kings: Absolute Power in Ancient Egypt and the Modern World" coming in November.)

I was curious about some conflicts in the text. Dr. Cooney talks briefly about Cleopatra having Mark Antony have her half-sister Arsinoe killed. But she says "Once the woman was dead - killed in her early thirties..." The information I found was that Arsinoe was 27 when killed. And "Indeed, Jesus of Galilee lived around the same time as Cleopatra and also fought the great Roman Empire in his own way—and he also lost, only to be martyred and later worshipped in his own popular mystery cult." ??? About sixty years later if the biblical stories are to be believed. ( )

Honestly, my expectations were not completely met with Kara Cooney’s new book, "When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt.”
Overall, I really loved this book, and Cooney continues to fuel my love for Ancient Egypt — and history in general. Kara Cooney in no way disappointed me with this book. It is well written, very detailed and highly informative.
However, I did end up only giving this book a four out of 5 star rating only because of how she structured the book. There were parts of each chapter that could have been taken out of their respective chapters and collated into one chapter at the beginning (I don’t have any specific examples). I also feel that each chapter could have been made into two chapters solely based on how much information Cooney crams into each chapter. Also, on a slightly different note, I feel that the chapter on Hatshepsut could have been a little shorter — it was 61 pages in total — due to the fact that she has written an entire book on Hatshepsut.
Despite this, as I mentioned, this book was a well-written book despite not having, in my opinion, the greatest structure. ( )

I do not think I can adequately express my feelings for this book. I find Egypt fascinating and love to learn anything I can about its history. I also love women and stories of empowerment and the fight for that power. This encapsulates both. It was well researched, well written and the author did the narration herself and while it wasn't spectacular it was what I expected for something so academic. ( )

My biggest complaint is the title of the book. Simply because women hold power occasionally doesn't mean they rule the world. They can't rule the world within a patriarchal society. They may rule for a short time using men's power, and using men's rules, but that doesn't mean they rule. I expected to find signs of matriarchy, or times when women worked to changed the rules, but no, they played within patriarchal rules. Women didn't rule Egypt, but I wish they had. As this book shows, when women rule, even within a patriarchal world, the world is a kinder place. ( )

When Women Ruled the World provides an in-depth examination of six female Egyptian rulers who were able to take hold and keep power within Ancient Egypt. The reigns of Merneith, Neferusobek, Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, Tawosret and Cleopatra are investigated combining strong research and intricate story telling. Author Kara Cooney combines facts along with what was known about the political environment, climate and world affairs at the time to weave a plausible life story of each of these amazing women. With very little sources available, the conditions under which the six women were able to take hold and continue their rule are investigated and connected in many ways to our current political scene in the United States and the realities that women in politics face today. There were also many other comparisons to current life that made the world of the Ancient Egyptians easy to understand. I was very interested in the ways that these women were able to come to power, often at the end of a Dynasty when there was no other choice and when everything seemed to be falling apart, the women were there to pick the pieces up and put things back together. I am by no means an Egypt specialist, but I have always been intrigued by their way of life. The writing style and information was presented in an entertaining way and was easy to understand. Looking at Egypt through the eyes of these six extraordinary women gave a very different view to an often misunderstood and glamorized time of history as well as much insight into how women behave in roles that are still seen as masculine to this day.

This book was received for free in return for an honest review. ( )