100 books like Queenship and the Women of Westeros

By Zita Eva Rohr (editor), Lisa Benz (editor),

Here are 100 books that Queenship and the Women of Westeros fans have personally recommended if you like Queenship and the Women of Westeros. 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 The Creation of the French Royal Mistress: From Agnès Sorel to Madame Du Barry

Zita Eva Rohr Author Of Yolande of Aragon (1381-1442) Family and Power: The Reverse of the Tapestry

From my list on premodern women of power and influence.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I was a child, I was forever drawing pictures of princesses in elaborate medieval and early modern dress. I devoured history books—especially those containing artworks that helped me visualize the people whose names rang out from their pages. Inexplicably, I was passionate about France and French language and culture from my primary school years. Then, in my early twenties, I stumbled onto Umberto Eco’s, The Name of the Rose, which appeared in English translation around 1983. History has been, and remains, my passion (as do whodunits). I have been passionately obsessed with in my research for over two decades—uncovering the truth that lies beneath the spin and the ashes.  

Zita's book list on premodern women of power and influence

Zita Eva Rohr Why did Zita love this book?

With this excellent and seamlessly co-authored study, Christine and Tracy have Adams delve into the creation of the post of the royal significant other—an often-overlooked category of premodern female power and influence. They move beyond the salacious to an intellectual understanding of the complementarity of gendered premodern political power.

By Tracy Adams, Tracy Adams, Christine Adams

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Creation of the French Royal Mistress as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Kings throughout medieval and early modern Europe had extraconjugal sexual partners. Only in France, however, did the royal mistress become a quasi-institutionalized political position. This study explores the emergence and development of the position of French royal mistress through detailed portraits of nine of its most significant incumbents: Agnes Sorel, Anne de Pisseleu d'Heilly, Diane de Poitiers, Gabrielle d'Estrees, Francoise Louise de La Baume Le Blanc, Francoise Athenais de Rochechouart de Mortemart, Francoise d'Aubigne, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, and Jeanne Becu.

Beginning in the fifteenth century, key structures converged to create a space at court for the royal mistress. The first was…


Book cover of Catherine of Aragon: Infanta of Spain, Queen of England

Zita Eva Rohr Author Of Yolande of Aragon (1381-1442) Family and Power: The Reverse of the Tapestry

From my list on premodern women of power and influence.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I was a child, I was forever drawing pictures of princesses in elaborate medieval and early modern dress. I devoured history books—especially those containing artworks that helped me visualize the people whose names rang out from their pages. Inexplicably, I was passionate about France and French language and culture from my primary school years. Then, in my early twenties, I stumbled onto Umberto Eco’s, The Name of the Rose, which appeared in English translation around 1983. History has been, and remains, my passion (as do whodunits). I have been passionately obsessed with in my research for over two decades—uncovering the truth that lies beneath the spin and the ashes.  

Zita's book list on premodern women of power and influence

Zita Eva Rohr Why did Zita love this book?

Theresa starts our journey into the past life of Catherine of Aragon, whom many regard very mistakenly as a victim, with a pair of shoes, a painting, a rosary, a fur-trimmed baby blanket. She shows us how each of these things took meaning from the ways Catherine experienced and perceived them. Upon these traces and fragments, her portrait of Catherine emerges, and we glimpse her life lived five centuries ago. Engagingly written by Theresa in her clear and elegant prose, her cultural and emotional biography of Catherine truly brings us closer to understanding her life from her own perspective.

By Theresa Earenfight,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Catherine of Aragon as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Catherine of Aragon is an elusive subject.

Despite her status as a Spanish infanta, Princess of Wales, and Queen of England, few of her personal letters have survived, and she is obscured in the contemporary royal histories. In this evocative biography, Theresa Earenfight presents an intimate and engaging portrait of Catherine told through the objects that she left behind.

A pair of shoes, a painting, a rosary, a fur-trimmed baby blanket-each of these things took meaning from the ways Catherine experienced and perceived them. Through an examination of the inventories listing the few possessions Catherine owned at her death, Earenfight…


Book cover of The Heart and Stomach of a King: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Sex and Power

Zita Eva Rohr Author Of Yolande of Aragon (1381-1442) Family and Power: The Reverse of the Tapestry

From my list on premodern women of power and influence.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I was a child, I was forever drawing pictures of princesses in elaborate medieval and early modern dress. I devoured history books—especially those containing artworks that helped me visualize the people whose names rang out from their pages. Inexplicably, I was passionate about France and French language and culture from my primary school years. Then, in my early twenties, I stumbled onto Umberto Eco’s, The Name of the Rose, which appeared in English translation around 1983. History has been, and remains, my passion (as do whodunits). I have been passionately obsessed with in my research for over two decades—uncovering the truth that lies beneath the spin and the ashes.  

Zita's book list on premodern women of power and influence

Zita Eva Rohr Why did Zita love this book?

Carole Levin’s magisterial work has now appeared in its second edition, a testament to its importance. Carole explores the myriad ways the unmarried, childless Elizabeth represented herself and the ways members of her court, foreign ambassadors, and subjects represented and responded to her as a public figure. Like her recently deceased successor, Elizabeth II, Elizabeth Tudor understood that she had to be seen to be believed. She fashioned herself into both the Virgin Queen and the mother of her people. Carole interrogates the gender constructions, role expectations, and beliefs about sexuality that influenced her public persona and the way she was perceived as a female Protestant ruler and points us to paths along which can travel to investigate other female monarchs regardless of time period and on a global scale.

By Carole Levin,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Heart and Stomach of a King as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In her famous speech to rouse the English troops staking out Tilbury at the mouth of the Thames during the Spanish Armada's campaign, Queen Elizabeth I is said to have proclaimed, "I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king." Whether or not the transcription is accurate, the persistent attribution of this provocative statement to England's most studied and celebrated queen illustrates some of the contradictions and cultural anxieties that dominated the collective consciousness of England during a reign that lasted from 1558 until 1603.
In The Heart…


Book cover of Power, Piety, and Patronage in Late Medieval Queenship: Maria de Luna

Zita Eva Rohr Author Of Yolande of Aragon (1381-1442) Family and Power: The Reverse of the Tapestry

From my list on premodern women of power and influence.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I was a child, I was forever drawing pictures of princesses in elaborate medieval and early modern dress. I devoured history books—especially those containing artworks that helped me visualize the people whose names rang out from their pages. Inexplicably, I was passionate about France and French language and culture from my primary school years. Then, in my early twenties, I stumbled onto Umberto Eco’s, The Name of the Rose, which appeared in English translation around 1983. History has been, and remains, my passion (as do whodunits). I have been passionately obsessed with in my research for over two decades—uncovering the truth that lies beneath the spin and the ashes.  

Zita's book list on premodern women of power and influence

Zita Eva Rohr Why did Zita love this book?

This book appeared just as I was on the point of completing my doctoral thesis. It helped me to understand the importance of examining a queen and/or elite premodern woman’s networks—familial, political, diplomatic, friendship and how these networks underpinned her use of both soft and indeed hard power. When the document trail goes cold in the archives, looking more closely at female networks and how they played out is a great way of overcoming gaps and erasures—both deliberate and accidental. It remains a durable and very influential study and a bonus for non-Ibericists as it is in English.

By Nuria Silleras-Fernandez,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Power, Piety, and Patronage in Late Medieval Queenship as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Based on an exhaustive and varied study of predominantly unpublished archival material as well as a variety of literary and non-literary sources, this book investigates the relation between patronage, piety and politics in the life and career of one Late Medieval Spain's most intriguing female personalities, Maria De Luna.


Book cover of Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State

Emrah Sahin Author Of Faithful Encounters: Authorities and American Missionaries in the Ottoman Empire

From my list on understanding the Ottoman Empire and the world.

Why am I passionate about this?

Emrah Sahin is a specialist in the history of religious interactions and international operations in Islam and Muslim-Christian relations. He received a Ph.D. from McGill University, a Social Science and Humanities Research Award from Canada, the Sabancı International Research Award from Turkey, and the Teacher of the Year Award from the University of Florida. He is currently with the University of Florida as a board member in Global Islamic Studies, an affiliate in History, a lecturer in European Studies, a college-wide advisor, and the coordinator of the federal Global Officer program.

Emrah's book list on understanding the Ottoman Empire and the world

Emrah Sahin Why did Emrah love this book?

Kafadar’s classic is a compelling prose unraveling the sources and fundamentals of the Ottoman state. It helps navigate the state’s existentialist search for order between Europe and the Orient. I like this book also because it comes from a culturally versed author well trained in multiple countries, disciplines, and traditions. Its focus on early conversations makes it one of my top picks in the Ottoman Empire and the Wider World.

By Cemal Kafadar,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Between Two Worlds as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This text analyzes medieval as well as modern historiography from the perspective of a cultural historian, demonstrating how ethnic, tribal, linguistic, religious and political affiliations were all at play in the struggle for power in Anatolia and the Balkans during the late Middle Ages. This examination of the rise of the Ottoman Empire - the longest-lived political entity in human history - shows the transformation of a tiny frontier enterprise into a centralized imperial state that saw itself as both leader of the world's Muslims and heir to the Eastern Roman Empire.


Book cover of In Defense of History

Yulia Ustinova Author Of Divine Mania: Alteration of Consciousness in Ancient Greece

From my list on how historians work.

Why am I passionate about this?

Doing historical research and thinking about history is an essential part of my personality. During my life, many things changed: the language I speak most of the time, the country where I live, people closest to me, my views, tastes, and habits. Ancient history and its research remain my vocation, job, and place of safety from early youth till nowadays. I am grateful to all people, long dead and living, whose insights on the study of the human past have taught me not only how to do research, but first and foremost how to live.

Yulia's book list on how historians work

Yulia Ustinova Why did Yulia love this book?

This book is a reflection on the nature of historical research and the perils of history in the postmodern age. An influential current in the study of history has abandoned the aspiration of getting close to the truth and accepts ideologically motivated accounts of the past as equally valuable narratives. The repercussions of the controversy on ‘post-truth’ reach far beyond the limits of the academic world and are ubiquitous in contemporary Western society. Richard J. Evans knows that from his own experience, having served as an expert witness in Irwing v Penguin Books and Lipstadt libel case, relating to Holocaust denial. The book offers a lucid analysis of the conflicting trends in the theory and practice of historical research. It links between the study of the past and the possibility of attaining certainty on present-day issues.

By Richard J. Evans,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked In Defense of History as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

E. H. Carr's What Is History?, a classic introduction to the field, may now give way to a worthy successor. In his compact, intriguing survey, Richard J. Evans shows us how historians manage to extract meaning from the recalcitrant past. To materials that are frustratingly meager, or overwhelmingly profuse, they bring an array of tools that range from agreed-upon rules of documentation and powerful computer models to the skilled investigator's sudden insight, all employed with the aim of reconstructing a verifiable, usable past. Evans defends this commitment to historical knowledge from the attacks of postmodernist critics who see all judgments…


Book cover of Not By Fact Alone: Essays on the Writing and Reading of History

Eileen Ka-May Cheng Author Of Historiography: An Introductory Guide

From my list on showing history is not just a record of facts.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a professor of history at Sarah Lawrence College and the author of The Plain and Noble Garb of Truth: Nationalism and Impartiality in American Historical Writing, 1784-1860. What has always fascinated me about history is how differently it can be interpreted by different people, even when looking at the exact same subject. While I write and teach on a variety of topics, ranging from the American Revolution to historiography, all of my courses and research deal in some way with the conflicts over how to represent the past that have divided both historians and the general public throughout the long history of history as a subject. 

Eileen's book list on showing history is not just a record of facts

Eileen Ka-May Cheng Why did Eileen love this book?

A collection of essays about “classic” works of history by (mostly) European historians ranging from Edward Gibbon to Jacob Burckhardt, Clive’s book brings these works to life even for readers unfamiliar with them. Clive’s short but rich essays on these historians provide a wonderful introduction to both their writings and to the study of historiography more generally, showing the value of these classic texts as works of literature and as gateways into the worlds of their authors.

By John Clive,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Not By Fact Alone as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this collection of essays, the author demonstrates that while reading the great historians of the past, such as Gibbon, de Tocqueville, Carlyle, Macaulay, Michelet, Halevy, Marx and Burckhardt, is part of a complete education, history can also be great literature.


Book cover of History in the Making

David Abulafia Author Of The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans

From my list on global history before the modern era.

Why am I passionate about this?

We live in an increasingly connected world. But human beings have always made connections with one another across space, and the space I find especially exciting is water - whether the narrow space of seas such as the Mediterranean and the Baltic, or the broader and wilder spaces of the great oceans. These are spaces that link distant countries and continents, across which people have brought objects, ideas and religions as well as themselves - a history of migrants, merchants, mercenaries, missionaries, and many others that can be recovered from shipwrecks, travellers' tales, cargo manifests, and many other sources, a history, ultimately, of the origins of our globalized world.

David's book list on global history before the modern era

David Abulafia Why did David love this book?

John Elliott is a world-class historian of Spain and its Empire, his reflections on how to write history without becoming immersed in jargon or obscure theories are beautifully woven into the story of how he himself learned the craft of writing clear, accessible, and original works of history, taking the reader from Cambridge to Franco’s Spain. This is a charming book with a valuable message.

By J.H. Elliott,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked History in the Making as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An eminent historian offers rare insight into his craft and the way it has changed over his lifetime

From the vantage point of nearly sixty years devoted to research and the writing of history, J. H. Elliott steps back from his work to consider the progress of historical scholarship. From his own experiences as a historian of Spain, Europe, and the Americas, he provides a deft and sharp analysis of the work that historians do and how the field has changed since the 1950s.

The author begins by explaining the roots of his interest in Spain and its past, then…


Book cover of In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War

G. C. Peden Author Of Churchill, Chamberlain and Appeasement

From my list on Britain and the coming of the Second World War.

Why am I passionate about this?

The Second World War featured prominently in comics and conversations with adults when I was a boy. Knowing about the war and its origins was a way to make sense of the world. As an undergraduate, my history professor insisted I also study economics. That has helped my study of strategy, which is also concerned with choices between alternative uses of scarce resources. However, dry analysis is not enough for a historian. It mattered that Churchill and Chamberlain had different personalities. I try to recapture the political passions of the past and the uncertainty people felt then about the future.

G.'s book list on Britain and the coming of the Second World War

G. C. Peden Why did G. love this book?

Churchill famously said that history would judge that he was right, and he would write the history. I admire David’s forensic approach to Churchill’s use of omissions and careful phrasing in this book to lend plausibility to counterfactuals regarding how Hitler could have been stopped. A masterpiece of historiography that enabled me to read Churchill’s work with new eyes.

By David Reynolds,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked In Command of History as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winston Churchill fought the World War II twice over-first as Prime Minister during the war, and then later as the war's premier historian. From 1948-54, he published six volumes of memoirs. They secured his reputation and shaped our understanding of the conflict to this day. Drawing on the drafts of Churchill's manuscript as well as his correspondence from the period, David Reynolds masterfully reveals Churchill the author. Reynolds shows how the memoirs were censored by the British government to conceal state secrets, and how Churchill himself censored them to avoid offending current world leaders. This book illuminates an unjustly neglected…


Book cover of The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West

Tore C. Olsson Author Of Red Dead's History: A Video Game, an Obsession, and America's Violent Past

From my list on the Wild West and turning the myths upside down.

Why am I passionate about this?

History and video games have defined much of my life, so it’s no surprise I’m writing about both. I was born in Sweden and first encountered the Wild West through the Lucky Luke comic books (huge in Europe!), and they instilled in me a fascination with American history. I emigrated to the U.S. with my family at age 8 and misspent most of my adolescence playing video games. In college, I returned to my childhood passion for studying the past and earned a BA, MA, and PhD in American history. Since 2013, I’ve been a professor at the University of Tennessee. Red Dead’s History is my second book.

Tore's book list on the Wild West and turning the myths upside down

Tore C. Olsson Why did Tore love this book?

I can’t tell you how often I hear people talking about an Old West–an era imagined as distinct from a New West that followed. Spoiler alert–that makes no sense. No author does a better job blowing up this fantasy than Patty Limerick, who argues that there’s a single throughline in Western history–that of conquest by external forces, usually the federal government or big businesses from Wall Street.

You’ll never think of the West in the same after reading this powerful book.

By Patricia Nelson Limerick,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The "settling" of the American West has been perceived throughout the world as a series of quaint, violent, and romantic adventures. But in fact, Patricia Nelson Limerick argues, the West has a history grounded primarily in economic reality; in hardheaded questions of profit, loss, competition, and consolidation. Here she interprets the stories and the characters in a new way: the trappers, traders, Indians, farmers, oilmen, cowboys, and sheriffs of the Old West "meant business" in more ways than one, and their descendents mean business today.


Book cover of The Creation of the French Royal Mistress: From Agnès Sorel to Madame Du Barry
Book cover of Catherine of Aragon: Infanta of Spain, Queen of England
Book cover of The Heart and Stomach of a King: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Sex and Power

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