A Woman's World - Dan Jones & Marina Amaral

A Woman's World

Review by Andrea

Rating 10/10

Even with my love for Dan Jones, I completely forgot that this book was coming out. I knew it was coming but was unsure as to the actual date. I got this book as a birthday present with a Waterstones voucher that I had been gifted. I was going to wait for a while before I decided to pick it up and read it, but seeing as I have just re-posted the reviews I did on the two previous books I decided to read it.

This book follows the same principles as the last two, but I felt that this one was slightly different. As the title suggests this book just follows the lives of women from the 1850's to the 1960's. There is a total of twelve chapters, which are separated into different fields like stage, science and war. At the start of each chapter one woman has been picked out and a brief write up about their life has been put in. The chapter then consists of about seventeen pictures of other women who all have their write up about their lives and what they did. One big difference that this book has compared to the last two is that there is no time-line at the bottom of the page at the start of each chapter. 

As a female historian there are a few famous women that I know, but at the same time there are a few that I didn't know till I picked up this book. Each chapter of this book brings them back to life and makes you notice what some of these women went through in life to achieve what they set out to do. The chapters are made up of not only the more famous women but also of the little known ones that did things behind the scenes. I love that some of these pictures I have seen a few of these pictures before, but in black and white, seeing them again but in colour gives them a new lease of life. In total there are 200 coloured pictures that range from Queens, movie stars, scientists and sports stars. 

It's not till you read a book like this that you notice the women that worked behind the scenes especially during the World Wars as well as in a world that was dominated by men. There are also the women that went out of their way to make a name for themselves despite being told they couldn't. I love these books as they show what life was like as well as how far we have come in the world. I hope that Dan and Marina make another one of these, but at the same time don't have a clue what they use as the main subject.