Women and War: Stories from the Amazons to the Greatest Generation through Art and Artifacts

This volume explores how art and artifacts can tell womens stories of war, a critical way into these stories, often hidden due to the second-tier status of reporting womens accomplishments. This unique lens reveals personal, cultural, and historically noteworthy experiences often not found in records, manuscripts, and texts.

Nine stories from history are examined, from the mythical Amazons of Ancient Greece to a female prisoner of war during World War II. Each of the social, political, and battlefield experiences of Penthesilea, Artemisia, Boudica, the feminine cavaliers, the Dahomey Amazons, suffragists, World War I medical corps, and a World War II prisoner of war are intertwined with a particular work of art or an artifact. These include pottery, iconographic images, public sculpture, stone engraving, clothing, decorative arts, paintings, and pulp art. Whilst each story stands alone, brought together in this volume they represent a cross sectional reflection on the record of women and war. The chapters cover not only a diverse range of women from around the globe - the African continent, the Hispanic territory of Europe, Carian and Ancient Greece and Rome, Iran, Great Britain-Scotland-ancient Caledonia, Western Europe, and North America but also a diversity choice of artwork and artifact, eras, and the nature of the wars being fought.

This book will be of value to those interested in gender across history and its interplay in the field of war.