Who says women don’t go to war? From Vikings and African queens to cross-dressing military doctors and WWII Russian fighter pilots, these are the stories of ladies for whom fight was not a metaphor.

The woman warrior is always cast as an anomaly-Joan of Arc, not GI Jane. But ladies, it turns out, have always attended war. Within this amazing and lively world history, Pamela Toler not merely introduces us to females who used arms, she also displays why they did it and what occurred if they stepped about Ladies Warriors: AN URGENT History out of their traditional feminine roles to take on other identities.

These are the stories of women who fought because they wanted to, because that they had to, or because they could. Among the warriors you’ll meet up with are:

* Tomyris, ruler of the Massagetae, who wiped out Cyrus the fantastic of Persia when he sought to invade her lands

* The West African ruler Amina of Hausa, who led her warriors inside a campaign of territorial growth for a lot more than 30 years

* Boudica, who led the Celtic tribes of Britain right into a substantial rebellion against the Roman Empire to avenge the rapes of her daughters

* The Trung sisters, Trung Trac and Trung Nhi, who led an untrained army of 80,000 soldiers to operate a vehicle the Chinese language empire away of Vietnam

* The Joshigun, a group of 30 combat-trained Japan women who struggled the forces of the Meiji emperor in the past due 19th century

* Lakshmi Bai, Rani of Jhansi, who was simply regarded as the “bravest and best” military innovator in the 1857 Indian Mutiny against Uk rule

* Maria Bochkareva, who commanded Russia’s initial all-female battalion-the First Women’s Battalion of Death-during WWII

* Buffalo Calf Street Woman, the Cheyenne warrior who knocked General Custer off his equine at the Fight of Small Bighorn

* Juana Azurduy de Padilla, a mestiza warrior who fought in at least 16 major battles against colonizers of Latin America and who is a national hero in Bolivia and Argentina today

* And so many more spanning from ancient moments through the 20th century.

By taking into consideration the ways that their presence continues to be erased from history, Toler reveals that women have often fought-not regardless of getting women but because they are women.