Fans pick 100 books like Gender on Ice, Volume 10

By Lisa Bloom,

Here are 100 books that Gender on Ice, Volume 10 fans have personally recommended if you like Gender on Ice, Volume 10. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance

Tracey Jean Boisseau Author Of White Queen: May French-Sheldon and the Imperial Origins of American Feminist Identity

From my list on the history of feminism and imperialism.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a historian of feminism, I have been trying for decades to understand how gender, race, class, and nationality are knotted together in ways that are not always obvious or trackable in our personal experience. The books I recommend here have served as brilliant lanterns for me—not simply pointing out the flawed history of western feminism but instead explaining the complicated effects of whiteness and imperialism in the development of today’s feminist identities, ideologies, and consciousness. For me, these histories offer intersectional keys decoding the map of the world we’ve been dropped into and offering a path leading to a more justly feminist future….I hope they do for you too!

Tracey's book list on the history of feminism and imperialism

Tracey Jean Boisseau Why did Tracey love this book?

A collection of very short but incredibly interesting and illuminating essays, this book inaugurated the field of study we might call “feminism and empire.” Strobel and Chaudhuri gathered up the most important histories written to that date that explained how nineteenth and twentieth-century feminism emerged from colonialist contexts all over the world. Asking the question “what difference does gender make?” each author teases out the importance of gender for colonial travel and politics in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Reading this book made me want to contribute to that kind of historical understanding of gender, modeling for me what an “intersectional feminist” method of historical investigation might look like.

By Nupur Chaudhuri (editor), Margaret Strobel (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Western Women and Imperialism as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"[Western Women and Imperialism] provides fascinating insights into interactions and attitudes between western and non-western women, mainly in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It is an important contribution to the field of women's studies and (primarily British) imperial history, in that many of the essays explore problems of cross-cultural interaction that have been heretofore ignored." -Nancy Fix Anderson

"A challenging anthology in which a multiplicity of authors sheds new light on the waves of missionaries, 'memsahibs,' nurses-and feminists." -Ms.

". . . a long-overdue engagement with colonial discourse and feminism. . . . excellent essays . . ." -The…


Book cover of Decolonizing Feminisms: Race, Gender & Empire Building

Tracey Jean Boisseau Author Of White Queen: May French-Sheldon and the Imperial Origins of American Feminist Identity

From my list on the history of feminism and imperialism.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a historian of feminism, I have been trying for decades to understand how gender, race, class, and nationality are knotted together in ways that are not always obvious or trackable in our personal experience. The books I recommend here have served as brilliant lanterns for me—not simply pointing out the flawed history of western feminism but instead explaining the complicated effects of whiteness and imperialism in the development of today’s feminist identities, ideologies, and consciousness. For me, these histories offer intersectional keys decoding the map of the world we’ve been dropped into and offering a path leading to a more justly feminist future….I hope they do for you too!

Tracey's book list on the history of feminism and imperialism

Tracey Jean Boisseau Why did Tracey love this book?

This book takes a tour through the most impactful and influential popular literature circulating in the 19th and early 20th centuries—the stories that laid the groundwork for a collective Anglo-American consciousness—and explains how these stories produced a set of feminist ideologies that were reliant upon a racist and imperialist imaginary. Whether it is her chapter on the “King and I” in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” or her tracking of the “picanninies” romping through “Peter Pan” and a “Passage to India,” Donaldson explains how we came to associate feminism with the ideologies of slavery and colonialism in the deepest recesses of our imaginations.

By Laura E. Donaldson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Decolonizing Feminisms as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Donaldson presents new paradigms of interpretation that help to bring the often oppositional stances of First versus Third World and traditional versus postmodern feminism into a more constructive relationship. She situates contemporary theoretical debates about reading, writing, and the politics of identity within the context of historical colonialism--primarily under the English in the nineteenth century.


Book cover of German Women for Empire, 1884-1945

Tracey Jean Boisseau Author Of White Queen: May French-Sheldon and the Imperial Origins of American Feminist Identity

From my list on the history of feminism and imperialism.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a historian of feminism, I have been trying for decades to understand how gender, race, class, and nationality are knotted together in ways that are not always obvious or trackable in our personal experience. The books I recommend here have served as brilliant lanterns for me—not simply pointing out the flawed history of western feminism but instead explaining the complicated effects of whiteness and imperialism in the development of today’s feminist identities, ideologies, and consciousness. For me, these histories offer intersectional keys decoding the map of the world we’ve been dropped into and offering a path leading to a more justly feminist future….I hope they do for you too!

Tracey's book list on the history of feminism and imperialism

Tracey Jean Boisseau Why did Tracey love this book?

This book teaches us how German imperialism tied itself to the emancipation of women, by focusing on the expansion of the German state into Africa and the Pacific rim. In the generations leading up to the establishment of the Third Reich, German women made themselves indispensable to German imperialism as nurses, wives, missionaries, mothers, sexual partners, and upholders of racial purity. This is simply one of the smartest books I’ve ever read, making clear the granular details of how empires were built and why gender matters in our understanding of them.

By Lora Wildenthal,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked German Women for Empire, 1884-1945 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

When Germany annexed colonies in Africa and the Pacific beginning in the 1880s, many German women were enthusiastic. At the same time, however, they found themselves excluded from what they saw as a great nationalistic endeavor. In German Women for Empire, 1884-1945 Lora Wildenthal untangles the varied strands of racism, feminism, and nationalism that thread through German women's efforts to participate in this episode of overseas colonization.
In confrontation and sometimes cooperation with men over their place in the colonial project, German women launched nationalist and colonialist campaigns for increased settlement and new state policies. Wildenthal analyzes recently accessible Colonial…


Book cover of The Spectacular Modern Woman: Feminine Visibility in the 1920s

Tracey Jean Boisseau Author Of White Queen: May French-Sheldon and the Imperial Origins of American Feminist Identity

From my list on the history of feminism and imperialism.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a historian of feminism, I have been trying for decades to understand how gender, race, class, and nationality are knotted together in ways that are not always obvious or trackable in our personal experience. The books I recommend here have served as brilliant lanterns for me—not simply pointing out the flawed history of western feminism but instead explaining the complicated effects of whiteness and imperialism in the development of today’s feminist identities, ideologies, and consciousness. For me, these histories offer intersectional keys decoding the map of the world we’ve been dropped into and offering a path leading to a more justly feminist future….I hope they do for you too!

Tracey's book list on the history of feminism and imperialism

Tracey Jean Boisseau Why did Tracey love this book?

This might be my favorite history book, period. Conor explains how “modern womanhood” in Australia came into being and was marked by the successful managing of one’s (sexualized and objectified) public appearance, including the way “primitive woman” (aboriginal or black) was constructed as a colonialist foil for the modern (white) Australian woman—whether she was a “screen-struck” movie fan, beauty contestant, or flapper. This book makes clear how women, as the principal focus of a newly visual mass media, came to define their “liberation” in sexual as well as racial and nationalist terms.

By Liz Conor,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Spectacular Modern Woman as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In The Spectacular Modern Woman, Liz Conor illustrates how technological advances in image reproduction transformed Western industrial societies into visual or "ocularcentric" cultures with significant and complex consequences for women's lives. With the rise of mass media, photography, and movies, a woman's visibility became a mark of her modernity, and the result was at once liberating and confining, given the many narrow conceptions of what it meant to be a modern woman. Focusing on the city girl in the metropolitan scene, the "Screen Struck Girl" in the cinematic scene, the mannequin in the commodity scene, the beauty contestant in the…


Book cover of Unravelling the Franklin Mystery 5: Inuit Testimony

Ken McGoogan Author Of Searching for Franklin: New Answers to the Great Arctic Mystery

From my list on lost Franklin Expedition.

Why am I passionate about this?

I did not set out to write six books about Arctic exploration. By the mid-1990s, while working full-time as a journalist, I had published three novels. I proposed to become a celebrated novelist. But then, during a three-month stint at the University of Cambridge, I discovered Arctic explorer John Rae–and that he had been denied his rightful recognition by Charles Dickens and other leading Victorians. I researched Rae’s story, marked his greatness in the Arctic, and celebrated him in Fatal Passage. It took me two decades and five more Arctic books to solve the great mystery while also publishing ten books on other subjects. Call me a compulsive scribbler. 

Ken's book list on lost Franklin Expedition

Ken McGoogan Why did Ken love this book?

First published in 1991, this book draws on Inuit oral history to challenge the “standard reconstruction” of how the Franklin expedition played out, presenting a more complex narrative. A master mariner, Woodman not only repeatedly searched King William Island for relics and bones but was the first to do an in-depth analysis of the unpublished Inuit testimony gathered by Charles Francis Hall with the help of Tookoolito. 

Woodman deduced that after the abandonment, some of Franklin’s men returned to the ice-locked vessels. Intensely focused and detailed, this book speaks to aspiring experts–and, for me, drew attention to the need for a broad, accessible survey of Arctic exploration highlighting the Indigenous contribution.  

By David C. Woodman,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Unravelling the Franklin Mystery 5 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

David Woodman's classic reconstruction of the mysterious events surrounding the tragic Franklin expedition has taken on new importance in light of the recent discovery of the HMS Erebus wreck, the ship Sir John Franklin sailed on during his doomed 1845 quest to find the Northwest Passage to Asia. First published in 1991, Unravelling the Franklin Mystery boldly challenged standard interpretations and offered a new and compelling alternative. Among the many who have tried to discover the truth behind the Franklin disaster, Woodman was the first to recognize the profound importance of Inuit oral testimony and to analyze it in depth.…


Book cover of The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu

Diane Lemieux Author Of Culture Smart! Canada

From my list on understanding the locals.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was born in Quebec, have lived in eleven countries, and speak four languages. In my 20+ years as an author and journalist, my goal has always been to create bridges between cultures and to tell stories that enable individuals to better understand each other. For me, a trip to a new country, no matter how short or long, is incomplete unless I’ve had the chance to meet locals.

Diane's book list on understanding the locals

Diane Lemieux Why did Diane love this book?

This book is a ‘gold standard’ piece of investigative journalism, a travelogue about a people I will probably never meet, rolled into the intriguing history of a unique city.

The book interweaves the tale of the efforts local people made to save priceless manuscripts from al-Qaida in 2012 with the West’s fascination of fabled Timbuktu since the 18th century.

It is an un-put-downable example of creative non-fiction at its most interesting and easily readable.

By Charlie English,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Two tales of a city: The historical race to reach one of the world's most mythologized places, and the story of how a contemporary band of archivists and librarians, fighting to save its ancient manuscripts from destruction at the hands of al Qaeda, added another layer to the legend.

The fabled city of Timbuktu has captured the Western imagination for centuries. The search for this 'African El Dorado' cost the lives of many explorers but Timbuktu is rich beyond its legends. Home to many thousands of ancient manuscripts on poetry, history, religion, law, pharmacology and astronomy, the city has been…


Book cover of The European Discovery of America: Volume 1: The Northern Voyages A.D. 500-1600

Ben Wiener Author Of Murder at First Principles

From my list on non-business reads that teach business strategy.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an experienced entrepreneur and venture capitalist and a voracious reader. My reading, particularly of non-business books, is motivated not just by a natural curiosity, but is also driven by a continuous search for metaphors and lessons from outside the traditional business genre that I can apply to situations and decisions in the business arena. My appreciation of the crossover benefit of non-business narratives to business contexts has motivated me to write my own Business Fiction works to “enlighten and entertain.” 

Ben's book list on non-business reads that teach business strategy

Ben Wiener Why did Ben love this book?

If you read this book about the early cross-Atlantic explorers and substitute today’s technology entrepreneurs, the metaphors fit cleanly.

They sold exuberant, sometimes-fulfilled, and often-failed stories to profit-seeking backers, took inordinate risks, and results were often winner-take-all.

As Mark Twain, another famous explorer, once said, “History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.”

By Samuel Eliot Morison,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The European Discovery of America as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The late Samuel Eliot Morison, a former U.S. Navy admiral, was also one of America's premier historians. Combining a first-hand knowledge of the sea and transatlantic travel with a brilliantly readable narrative style, he produced what has become nothing less than the definitive account of the great age of European exploration. In his riveting and richly illustrated saga, Morison offers a comprehensive account of all the known voyages by Europeans to the New World
from 500 A.D. to the seventeenth century. Together, the two volumes of The European Discovery of America tell the compelling stories of the many intrepid explorers…


Book cover of Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World

Andrew Hadfield Author Of Amazons, Savages, and Machiavels: Travel and Colonial Writing in English, 1550-1630: An Anthology

From my list on early English travel writing.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a Professor of English at the University of Sussex. I have worked on a wide range of subjects over the years, mainly about the English Renaissance. I have a long-standing interest in travel and colonial writing, the ways in which the English interacted with other peoples and other places, which started with my interest in Ireland where I studied and which was the subject of my early books. I have broadened my perspective as I have read more on the Americas, Africa, Europe, and Asia, over the years and am committed to uncovering the truth of the uncomfortable, challenging, and fascinating history of the early British Empire.

Andrew's book list on early English travel writing

Andrew Hadfield Why did Andrew love this book?

This book contains a series of inspired readings that show how the newly discovered American continent transformed English/European notions of what it was to be human in an age dominated by religion.

The peoples found in America generated fear, hatred, confusion, but, most of all, wonder at the possibilities of human life, challenging the ways in which Europeans had habitually thought.

By Stephen Greenblatt,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Marvelous Possessions as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A masterwork of history and cultural studies, Marvelous Possessions is a brilliant meditation on the interconnected ways in which Europeans of the Age of Discovery represented non-European peoples and took possession of their lands, particularly in the New World. In a series of innovative readings of travel narratives, judicial documents, and official reports, Stephen Greenblatt shows that the experience of the marvelous, central to both art and philosophy, was manipulated by Columbus and others in the service of colonial appropriation. Much more than simply a collection of the odd and exotic, Marvelous Possessions is both a highly original extension of…


Book cover of The Last Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen

Buddy Levy Author Of Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk

From my list on polar exploration, expeditions, and survival.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been passionate about Polar exploration since I was a boy. My father was a Nordic Olympic skier who introduced me to the exploits of Norwegian and Scandinavian explorers when I was very young. Later, I traveled to Greenland in 2003 and was blown away by the remoteness, the dramatic ice and mountains, and the incredible toughness of the people who have explored the regions and carved out life there.

Buddy's book list on polar exploration, expeditions, and survival

Buddy Levy Why did Buddy love this book?

I love a great cradle-to-grave biography, and gives the life story of Roald Amundsen, in my opinion, the greatest Polar explorer in history. I gained so much insight into the man who was driven to explore the most extreme places on earth, the Polar regions.

I relished the deep insights into Amundsen’s character and personality, which helped me better understand one of the more misunderstood figures in exploration history.

By Stephen Bown,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Last Viking as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Last Viking unravels the life of the man who stands head and shoulders above all those who raced to map the last corners of the world. In 1900, the four great geographical mysteries- the Northwest Passage, the Northeast Passage, the South Pole, and the North Pole- remained blank spots on the globe. Within twenty years Roald Amundsen would claim all four prizes. Renowned for his determination and technical skills, both feared and beloved by his men, Amundsen is a legend of the heroic age of exploration, which shortly thereafter would be tamed by technology, commerce, and publicity. Feted in…


Book cover of Of Cannibals and Kings: Primal Anthropology in the Americas

Ida Altman Author Of Life and Society in the Early Spanish Caribbean: The Greater Antilles, 1493-1550

From my list on what happened after Columbus got to the Caribbean.

Why am I passionate about this?

Throughout my career as a historian I’ve been interested in the expansion of the Iberian world and its consequences for societies and cultures in Spain as well as Spanish America, especially Mexico. I knew that the Caribbean, the first site of European activity in the Americas, played an important role in that story, yet paradoxically it didn’t seem to receive much attention from historians, at least in the U.S. When I finally decided to focus my research on the period immediately following Columbus’s first voyages, I entered into a complex and dynamic world of danger, ambition, exploitation, and novelty. I hope to open that world to others in my book.

Ida's book list on what happened after Columbus got to the Caribbean

Ida Altman Why did Ida love this book?

This slim volume features six documents relating to the early years following Columbus’s arrival in the Caribbean, including two by Columbus himself. The core of the volume is anthropologist Neil Whitehead’s translation of the account written by Román Pané, the Jeronymite friar sent by Columbus to live among an Indigenous group in the northern part of Hispaniola. There Pané tried, with very limited success, to spread Christianity. He also set down in writing the origin myths and beliefs described by his Native informants, a unique reflection of the Indigenous world that existed when Europeans arrived on the islands. I like this collection both for the range of documents included and Whitehead’s insights from his scholarly and ethnographic work in the Caribbean.  

By Neil L. Whitehead,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Of Cannibals and Kings as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Of Cannibals and Kings collects the very earliest accounts of the native peoples of the Americas, including selections from the descriptions of Columbus's first two voyages; documents reflecting the initial colonial occupation in Haiti, Venezuela, and Guyana; and the first ethnographic account of the Tainos by the missionary Ramon Pane. This primal anthropology directly guided a rapacious discovery of the lands of both wild cannibals and golden kings.


Book cover of Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance
Book cover of Decolonizing Feminisms: Race, Gender & Empire Building
Book cover of German Women for Empire, 1884-1945

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