Books like Empress of the east by Leslie P. Peirce

Sucks go die

Plutarch’s *Lives* presents in-depth character studies of notable statesmen and generals from pre‑Christian Greece and Rome.

Biographical account of Harriet Tubman, the 19th‑century African‑American woman who escaped slavery and guided many others to freedom via the Underground Railroad.

Hatshepsut—the daughter of a general who usurped Egypt's throne and a mother with ties to the previous dynasty—was born into a privileged position in the royal household, and she was expected to bear the sons who would legitimize the reign of her father’s family. Her failure to produce a male heir was ultimately the twist of fate that paved the way for her improbable rule as a cross-dressing king. At just over twenty, Hatshepsut ascended to the rank of pharaoh in an elaborate coronation ceremony that set the tone for her spectacular reign as co-regent with Thutmose III, the infant king whose mother Hatshepsut out-maneuvered for a seat on the throne. Hatshepsut was a master strategist, cloaking her political power plays in the veil of piety and sexual reinvention. Just as women today face obstacles from a society that equates authority with masculinity, Hatshepsut shrewdly operated the levers of power to emerge as Egypt's second female pharaoh.

The unearthing of lively, telling anecdotes is the special province of Christopher Hibbert, who delights in forcing readers, in the most entertaining way, to reassess all their notions about some of the world's most intriguing historical figures. His biography of Victoria is no exception. We learn in these pages that not only was she the formidable, demanding, capricious Queen of popular imagination, but she was also often shy and vulnerable, prone to giggling fits and crying jags. Often puritanical and censorious when confronted with her mother's moral lapses, she herself could be passionately sensual, emotional, and deeply sentimental. Her 64-year reign saw thrones fall, empires crumble, new continents explored, and England's rise to global and industrial dominance. Hibbert's account of Victoria's life and times is just as sweeping as he reveals to us the real Victoria in all her complexity: failed mother and imperious monarch, irrepressible woman and icon of a repressive age.--From publisher description.

Carney examines the lives and roles of Macedonian royal women from the sixth to the second centuries B.C.

A concise biography of Elizabeth I that highlights her early life and the forces shaping her as King‑maker.

"Sixteenth-century Europe saw an explosion of female rule. Large swathes of the continent were under the firm hand of a dozen reigning women as queens, regents, mothers, wives, or counselors. From Isabella of Castile, her daughter Katherine of Aragon, and her granddaughter Mary Tudor, to Catherine de Medici, Anne Boleyn, and Elizabeth Tudor; from England and France to the Netherlands, and across the Holy Roman Empire, these women wielded enormous power over their territories, shaping the course of European history for over a century"--