Improbable Women: Five Who Explored the Middle East (Contemporary Issues in the Middle East) Hardcover – October 22, 2013

Very interesting. This book held my attention all the way through to the end. I will recommend it to other history lovers.

What do these five women - Hester Stanhope, Jane Digby, Isabel Burton, Gertrude Bell, and Freya Stark-have in common? According to Improbable Women, each of them were fascinated by Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra. Each of them have braved the dangers of the Middle Eastern desert to visit and pay homage to Zenobia’s Palmyra, a once great city that was destroyed by the Romans. Therefore, this book is a chronicle of these five women’s pilgrimage to the ancient ruined city of Palmyra. Palmyra was once a city that prospered from trade around both Arabia, the Far East, and Rome. The good water supply and its strategic location helped make Palmyra an affluent city. The city was once built by the Arameans, but Alexander the Great conquered the city and named it Palmyra for date-palms. In late third century, the city was ruled by King Odenath. Zenobia was the daughter of a great Palmyrenes general, and she became King Odenath’s second wife. They later had a son. After the murder of her husband, Zenobia became regent for her son. She then went to Rome and demanded that they would give her more lands to control. When they refused, Zenobia declared war. She was eventually captured by the Romans and forced to surrender. Since then she was given a reputation of the warrior queen. A woman who these five women felt that they could relate to. These five women each had their own adventures journeying to Palmyra. While they were flawed women, each of their biographies seems as if they were heroes in romantic tales. Each of them, like Zenobia, made their mark of the Middle East and made many accomplishments. This book is not only a biography of these six women, rather it is also a geopolitical book that studies the Middle East. Overall, this book is about the accomplishments and contributions these six remarkable women made. This book is filled with adventure and romance. They have captured the imaginations to the people of their time. It is also an in-depth study of the geopolitics of the Middle East. This book is about how these British women have made contact with the Middle East. I recommend this book to anyone interested in British history, and how the British interacted with Middle Easterners.(Note: I read an ARC copy of this book in courtesy of NetGalley.)

[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]As someone who personally admires Zenobia, I knew I just had to pick up Improbable Women. A biography of one of my favourite heroines as well as five other incredible women? How could could I not read it?I was slightly disappointed in the level of detail in the biographies, but I’m fully aware that including enough details to satisfy me would have meant a separate book for each woman. If you haven’t heard anything about these women the information could be a little overwhelming at first, but William Woods Cotterman has a great writing style to help you along. It’s actually easier to read Improbable Women if you read one biography and then pause to reflect before going onto the next one, but it’s not a requirement.Improbable Women was actually broken up into logical segments which seems to be rare in the nonfiction books I’ve read through NetGalley. Each section is clearly labelled and the order the biographies are in actually make sense. Some of the women profiled in here were inspired by other women in the book, so I liked how that was mentioned and the similarities between each the two were pointed out. At the same time, readers are never spoken down to when these similarities are drawn.Overall, Improbable Women is a great read for anyone who loves reading about women who were ahead of their time. Every single woman in this collection of biographies from Zenobia to Freya Stark was ahead of her time and lived a fascinating life. Some were more interesting than others, but that’s a matter of personal preference than anything. I would highly recommend Improbable Women to pretty much anyone.I give this book 5/5 stars.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, upper class British women were expected to bear children, entertain guests and, above all, remember their place. At a time when travel to France or Spain was the height of adventure, a journey to the Middle East, even by a man, was considered dangerously foolhardy and such a trip by a woman was too fantastic to even consider.This book tells the story of five British women who were not content to endure the stifling boredom of British social life and sought adventure in a part of the world that had not changed much since the twelfth century. For a lone woman to enter this male dominated culture and not only survive but gain the respect and even admiration of the Arabs is astonishing. Yet, the five women in this book managed to do just that.Whether exploring and mapping territory that had never been seen by a westerner, spying on the Turks for British Intelligence, redrawing the boundaries of Iraq or ruling a small fiefdom, their exploits read like fiction yet the author provides extensive documentation that they are true.Before each biographical sketch the author describes the world in which the subject lived. The result is an overview of the history of England and the Middle East from a unique perspective. It appears that the author has visited most of the sites in the book and he describes how they appear today, information that may be of interest to tourists.I enjoyed this book very much and would recommend it to anyone interested in women's studies, Middle Eastern history, travel to the Middle East or just a good adventure story.