Books like Grandma Gatewood's walk by Ben Montgomery

Mariatu Kamara, once a Sierra Leonean teenager cut off mid‑hand while being kidnapped, survived as a beggar before becoming a UNICEF Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, sharing her story of resilience.

A sharp, humorous collection of essays by sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom that interrogates black womanhood, body politics, and the lived experience of a Southern Black academic.

Isabella L. Bird’s 1878 travelogue chronicles her 1,400‑mile journey across Japan by horse, ferry, foot, and jinrikisha, offering a vivid portrait of a society on the cusp of modern change.

Wangari Maathai tells the story of her life from rural Kenya to founding the Green Belt Movement, a women‑empowering environmental initiative that challenged the government and rekindled democracy.

The American Revolution was a home-front war that brought scarcity, bloodshed, and danger into the life of every American. The author shows that women played a vital role throughout the struggle: we see women boycotting British goods in the years before independence, writing propaganda that radicalized their neighbors, raising funds for the army, and helping finance the fledgling government. We see how they managed farms, plantations, and businesses while their men went into battle, and how they served as nurses and cooks in the army camps; risked their lives carrying intelligence, participating in reconnaissance missions, or seeking personal freedom from slavery; served as spies, saboteurs, and warriors; and lived with the daily knowledge that their husbands could be hanged as traitors if the revolution did not succeed.

Political autobiography of Simone Veil, holocaust surviver, former president of the European Parliament, several times minister in French governments; one of the most outstanding politicians of post-war France and Europe.

Five fashion icon biographies revealed through their wardrobes—Marian Fowler examines how women’s clothing choices defined style, identity, and eras in a clear, scholarly look at history and fashion.