Why I Write History

 

Like many history buffs, history first caught my imagination through stories.

One of my favorite things to do when I was small was curl up next to my grandmother and ask her, “What did you do when you were a little girl?”  

From there it was a short step to reading biographies about historical women who ignored social boundaries and accomplished things—the kind that are written with the intention of inspiring young girls.  

My grade school’s revolving library owned a whole series of them. Every week a new one arrived and I snatched it before anyone else could get it, eager to read about Clara Barton, Madame Curie or Julia Ward Howe.

By the time I was in high school, I was that nerdy kid who hung out at the local historical society and at Wilson Creek National Battlefield on the weekends and in the summer. (I even learned to shoot a muzzle-loading rifle—a skill I never expected to be useful on my resume. Life takes funny twists sometimes.)

My life as a history buff took an unexpected turn when at the age of eight or nine I fell in love with Rudyard Kipling’s Kim. (Did I mention the importance of stories?) Kipling’s India put me on the path to a PhD in South Asia history.

It wasn’t a straight path. And it wasn’t a short one. The first day of my PhD program at University of Chicago, my advisor said, “You know there are no jobs, right?”  I knew, but I didn’t care. Without the promise (or perhaps the threat) of a teaching job at the end of the road, I kept wandering down fascinating by-ways. I still do, every chance I get.

Today my goal is to write books about important historical topics that will engage history buffs and nerdy kids and the intelligent general reader. (That’s you, right?) Accessible doesn’t mean easy. The history I write often turns what we think we know about history inside out, or at least looks at the familiar from an unfamiliar angle. In doing so, I ask us to look at the world today from a slightly different angle as well. The impact of this can be profound. If you are able to look at history from someone else’s perspective for even a short time, you are more apt to see her as a person rather than “the other.” When we re-introduce overlooked populations into the story, the historical framework gets a little bigger, a little more complex.

On the other hand, sometimes I just want to tell a good story.  Pull up a chair.

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Armed with a PhD in history, a well-thumbed deck of library cards, and a large bump of curiosity, author, speaker, and historian, Pamela D. Toler translates history for a popular audience. She goes beyond the familiar boundaries of American history to tell stories from other parts of the world as well as history from the other side of the battlefield, the gender line, or the color bar. Toler is the author of eight books of popular history for children and adults.

 Her newest book, Women Warriors:  An Unexpected History came out February, 2019.  Her work has appeared in Aramco World, Calliope, History Channel Magazine, MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History and Time.com.

Website: https://www.pameladtoler.com/

Blog: https://www.historyinthemargins.com/

Twitter: @pdtoler

Instagram:  pamelatolerauthor

Women Warriors: An Unexpected History

For the most part, women warriors have been pushed into the historical shadows, hidden in the footnotes, or half-erased. But in fact, women have always gone to war—or fought back when war came to them.  They fought to avenge their families, defend their homes (or cities or nations), win independence from a foreign power, expand their kingdom’s boundaries, or satisfy their ambition. They battled disguised as men.  They fought, undisguised, on the ramparts of besieged cities. Some were skilled swordsmen or trained snipers, others fought with improvised weapons. They were hailed as heroines and cursed as witches, sluts, or harridans.

In Women Warriors, historian Pamela Toler examines the stories of historical women for whom battle was not a metaphor: using both well known and obscure examples, drawn from the ancient world through the twentieth century and from Asia and Africa as well as from the West.  Looking at specific examples of historical women warriors, she considers why they went to war, how those reasons related to their roles as mothers, daughters, wives, or widows, peacemakers, poets or queens—and what happened when women stepped outside their accepted roles to take on other identities. She considers the ways in which their presence on the ramparts or the battlefield has been erased from history and looks at the patterns and parallels that emerge when we look at similar stories across historical periods and geographical boundaries.  Toler tells the stories of queens and commoners, those who commanded from the rear and those who fought in the front lines, those who fought because they wanted to, because they had to, or because they could. She looks at ordinary women who did extraordinary things as well as the truly exceptional. And she kicks a few historical shins in the process.

Women warriors are assumed to be historical anomalies—Joan of Arc, not G.I. Jane.  By comparing the stories of individual women across historical periods and geographical boundaries, Toler uncovers a different story. Women have always fought, not in spite of being women but because they are women.

–Praise for Women Warriors

“Pamela Toler’s writing never fails to delight me. In Women Warriors, she is like that best friend who is just way smarter than you, whose witty and engaging explanations help you see the past in a brand-new light. Toler takes you on a whirlwind tour through history and around the world, sharing stories about the hidden history of women who have led in military battle, elucidating the reasons why women’s long history in combat has often been hidden. Toler is a first-rate scholar who truly knows her stuff, and yet she imparts her wisdom with a light and engaging touch.”

—Elizabeth Letts, author of the New York Times bestseller The Perfect Horse

“In Women Warriors: An Unexpected History, self-described ‘academic renegade’ Pamela D. Toler has crafted a smart and highly entertaining chronicle of female fighters. Working across centuries and continents, Toler introduces readers to a host of colorful, courageous women who proved themselves as formidable foes on the battlefield, outwitting and overpowering their male adversaries along the way. From Boudica, who led a rebellion against the Roman Empire, to Maria Bochkareva, who commanded Russia’s first all-female battalion during World War II, we meet countless forgotten sister soldiers who acted with valor and verve.  Toler may call this history unexpected, but readers will consider it a necessary and most welcome addition to the current literature about women and war.”–Paige Bowers, author of The General’s Niece: The Little-Known de Gaulle Who Fought to Free Occupied France

“Pamela Toler’s exhilarating accounts of so many women who went to war, around the world, from antiquity to the present, and for so many different reasons, finally puts to rest the tired old arguments that only men are fit for combat.”—Adrienne Mayor, author of The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World

“Lucid and lively, Pamela Toler’s delightfully complex history of women’s presence on the battlefield debunks the myth that women have not been and therefore cannot be warriors. It is a welcome contribution to the growing body of work that seeks to bring women out of the shadows of history, in this case the particularly male world of military history.”–Anne Boyd Rioux, author of Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters

“Toler blows past all expectations with this thoroughly delightful, personable, and crucially important history of women warriors. From the start she makes it clear that this will not be the sort of heroic hagiography that many collective biographies of women (especially those aimed in any way at teen readers) often become. Indeed, the women she writes about were not always heroic, and some were downright bloodthirsty and terrible, but there is no doubt that every single one of them was a warrior. Striking a blow against male historians who lazily dismiss female soldiers as “insignificant exceptions,” Toler sets out to uncover just how common women warriors were in history. Cutting a broad swath across continents and conflicts, she provides one story after another of women who fought hard for their people, their tribes, and their countries. Her captivating writing style, which is marked by disarmingly cheeky footnotes, makes this trip through so much forgotten history an exceedingly pleasurable reading experience, and her subjects, from the famous (Joan of Arc) to the criminally overlooked (Buffalo Calf Road Woman, who likely killed Custer) are a treat to learn about. An absolute research gem, Women Warriors is a historian’s roar all libraries should welcome.” —Booklist

 

Tags: featued, women writers

Category: On Writing