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An extensive and fascinating collection of stories featuring both famous and everyday women, giving a well-rounded view of the lives of women in the ancient world.When did women first become rulers, athletes, soldiers, heroines, and villains? They always were, observes historian Judith Salisbury. From Mesopotamian priestesses and poets to Egyptian queens and consorts, "there was never a time when women did not participate in all aspects of society."Salisbury tells the stories of 150 women from the ancient world, ranging from the very famous, such as Cleopatra VII, immortalized by Hollywood, to the barely remembered, such as the Roman poet Nossis. Writing for a general audience, Salisbury begins by painting each woman into her historical context, then recounts each woman''s story, describing the choices she made as she looked for happiness, wealth, power, or well-being for herself and her family-stories much like our own. In entries on general themes-clothing, cosmetics, work, sexuality, prostitution, gynecology-Salisbury analyzes the commonalties in the lives of these women of antiquity from a cross-cultural perspective.>
About the author
JOYCE E. SALISBURY is Frankenthal Professor of History at University of Wisconsin - Green Bay. She has a Ph.D. in Medieval History from Rutgers University. Professor Salisbury is an award-winning teacher: She was named CASE (Council for Advance and Support of Education) Professor of the Year for Wisconsin in 1991, and has brought her concern for pedagogy to this Encyclopedia. Professor Salisbury has written or edited more than ten books, including the award-winning Perpetua's Passion: Death and Memory of a Young Roman Woman, The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages, Encyclopedia of Women in the Ancient World, and The West in the World, a successful Western Civilization textbook.
ANDREW E. KERSTEN received his B.A. in History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his M.A. and Ph.D at University of Cincinnati. Since 1997, he has taught in the History Department at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Kersten has published in the Queen City Heritage, The Michigan Historical Review, and The Missouri Historical Review, has contributed to several anthologies and encyclopedias, and is author of Race, Jobs and the War: The FEPC in the Midwest, 1941-1946 and the co-editor of Politics and Progress: The State and American Society since 1865 (Greenwood, 2001). Currently he is writing a history of the American Federation of Labor during World War II.
