The Woman Who Would Be King

I won this book as a Goodreads first reads give-away. The book is about the reign of King Hatshepsut who ruled Egypt first as regent to her toddler nephew, Thutmose III, and then as co-king with him. Kara Cooney writes in the Author's Note at the beginning of the book that due to the length of time and the Egyptians superficial methods of reporting on a ruler's reign, there was a lot of conjecture in the book. This was distracting at times since the author would propose one theory for a large portion of a chapter and then end with...but maybe that person was already dead by that time or maybe the complete opposite reasoning was behind a particular outcome. She does this a number of times with Hatshepsut's daughter Nefrure, who was maybe being raised to succeed her mother when the tide changed against her. Or maybe she was dead.

I did like the book. It seems very well researched and it is an interesting defense of a woman that wielded great power for over twenty peaceful years. The author mentions many times how suspicious early Egyptologists where of her reign...assuming that she was a power-hungry bitch that stole the throne from the rightful heir. Nevermind that he was 2 or 3 years old at the time and quite unable to rule. Nevermind the fact that she was a successful ruler that greatly increased the wealth of Egypt during her reign. Nevermind the extensive building that she sponsored. There seems to be no evidence that she was not considered a good ruler and a great deal of evidence showing that she was the reason her dynasty was able to continue. When Thutmose III finally did elect to have her erased from the records, he intentionally did not do a complete job (taking out only references to her as King) and waited 20 years after her death to even do this. It seems likely he was motivated more to try and shore up the line of succession for his heir than to get rid of the evil usurper.

Overall though, I feel that the book would have made more sense at times if it were a well researched work of historical fiction than as a history book filled with so much theory.

Originally posted on bluchickenninja.com.

Hatshepsut was born into a privileged position in the royal household, and she was expected to bear the sons who would legitimise the reign of her father's family. Her failure to produce a male heir was ultimately the twist of fate that paved the way for her improbable rule as a cross-dressing king.

Hatshepsut successfully negotiated a path from the royal nursery to the very pinnacle of authority, and her reign saw one of Ancient Egypt's most prolific building periods. Scholars have long speculated as to why her monuments were destroyed within a few decades of her death, all but erasing evidence of her unprecedented rule. The Woman Who Would Be King traces the unconventional life of an almost-forgotten pharaoh and explores our complicated reactions to women in power.

This book is fascinating but it is also extremely frustrating. The author concedes that we do not have much information about Hatshepust. We know very little about her personality, her political manoeuvring and her relationships with her father, Thutmose I, her brother and husband, Thutmose II, and her nephew and co-regent, Thutmose III. The author makes liberal use of words like “perhaps” and “maybe”, she poses numerous questions asking what Hatshepust might have thought or how she felt. But of course we can't know the answers to these questions as the records simply do not exist. So the author makes assumptions of what the thoughts and feelings of Hatshepsut may have been.

I think it is important to learn about Hatshepsut. As the author puts it:

The challenges Hatshepsut faced and the sacrifices she made are familiar to powerful women of the twenty-first century: balancing the personal and the political, overcoming stereotypes of hysterical and unbalanced femininity, and making compromises never asked of powerful men. For Hatshepsut, her unprecedented success was rewarded with a short memory, while the failures of other female leaders from antiquity will be forever immortalised in our cultural consciousness.

However with all the speculation and guessing in this book I can't help but feel there may be a better way of learning about Hatshepsut.

I got this book through First Reads a couple weeks ago. My interest in Egyptology is superficial at best, but the idea intrigued me enough to enter, and now I'm glad I did. Cooney presents a narrative of King Hatshepsut, a woman who ruled Egypt centuries before Cleopatra and who did so peacefully, effectively, and without exploiting her own sexuality.

As with any study of ancient peoples, a lot of this book is well-defended conjecture, and I can't help wondering if this is the five blind men and the elephant situation. Even if it is, the story Cooney weaves teaches us a lot about our own civilization and how we view people in power. When Hatshepsut's story was initially uncovered, Egyptologists wrote a narrative of an unattractively ambitious woman who stole a throne that did not belong to her and eventually got what she deserved.

Cooney, on the other hand, presents Hatshepsut's rise to power as a necessary, often well-received transition driven by her upbringing, abilities, and piety. She is open about what parts of the story are assumptions and hypotheses and presents volumes of research to support her ideas. The fact that our society had to evolve in order to even consider this idea is probably one of the most important aspects of this novel.

As a novice in Egyptian history, I still found it easy to read and engagingly written. I'd almost like to see it presented as an annotated novel rather than a historical text, but it's still interesting enough to keep turning the pages without fictitious elements. I would love it if it included a few pictures illustrating Hatshepsut's monuments and the evolution of her representation from princess to king, but I imagine the genre isn't quite popular enough for the cost of printing photos. That's what Google Images is for, right?

So for those with a strong interest in feminist history and/or Egyptology, this book is definitely a must read. Hatshepsut may not have the romantic appeal of a Cleopatra, but her pragmatism and skill make her a hero for the modern age as much as the ancient one.