The two books I am highlighting in this post were both published in October of 2021. While they cover two different time periods–Renaissance Europe and Revolutionary America–the authors have painstakingly researched and intriguingly presented information that some of us may not have known.

The first book is by a prize-winning author who is also a professor at the University of South Carolina. Woody Holton teaches Early American history and focuses on diversity in the forming of our country. In Liberty Is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution, the reader not only learns how women were a vital part of the Revolution, but also discovers how African Americans and Native Americans participated. Mariissa Moss, of the “New York Journal of Books,” writes that Liberty is Sweet is “a richly researched, carefully thought-out, and complicatedly inclusive history, an antidote to the current black-and-white thinking that’s proving so divisive today.‎

Maureen Quilligan takes the reader back to the sixteenth century in Europe and sheds a new light on a fascinating relationship between four female monarchs. Mary Tudor, Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots, and Catherine de’Medici interacted in a manner that many historians have overlooked. Instead of being rivals, they were actually compatriots in an effort to promote peace during a time of unrest in the area. Leading Renaissance scholar and Duke professor Quilligan has included in the book proof of letters and gifts exchanged among these women–proof that they worked to hold a female presence in a world riddled with fragile political alliances. Critics praise Women Who Ruled the World: Making the Renaissance in Europe for readers who are interested in Renaissance and women’s history. Elaine Pagels writes that, “Drawing on a wealth of royal archives, Maureen Quilliagan tells a story more fascinating than fiction.”