The best books on barrier breaking women

On finishing my book, I wanted to write a companion novel, based this time in Paris. My inspiration for the lead character in that book was Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, an extraordinary woman who led the Alliance network in France, operating on behalf of SIS, as MI6 was then known. Her handler Sir Kenneth Cohen described her as the ‘textbook beautiful spy,’ but her intelligence and courage marked her out even more. Marie-Madeleine lived a life on the run, operating under the radar via a string of false identities, and even escaping imprisonment. Lynne Olsen’s riveting account tells the story of Marie-Madeleine’s terrifying existence in Nazi-occupied France, and of a heartbreaking love affair. 

A few years ago I spoke at the London History Festival alongside Nadine Akkerman, and we realised how much the female spies of 17c Britain and the Second World War had in common, not only conveniently overlooked in their own day, but also disregarded subsequently. This brilliant study explores the gendered dimension of early modern spycraft.

The movie made from Hidden Figures was compelling and surprising: The U.S. government employed brilliant black women to help get men into outer space. In Shetterly’s book, you’ll find a story that is bigger. Shetterly introduces far more people than the three women spotlighted in the movie. Where did all of these women come from? How did they get beyond the entrenched racism in Virginia, the state surrounding Langley Research Center, where some counties even closed their public schools for years to both white and Black children rather than allow integration? How did these mathematicians gradually win the respect of white male engineers that dominated Langley’s research facilities? What spurred their initial employment well before the U.S. pushed to come from behind in the 1950s space race with the Russians? It’s an inspiring tale, all the more powerful than the movie, because it is comprehensive and entirely true.