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.

Fully acknowledging that this is one person's take on Hatshepsut's biography, it sounds like the author is knowledgeable in ancient Egypt, appears to base her conclusions on facts, and has done some serious contemplation on interpreting what she knows and fleshing that out to make the woman and her world become real in the mind's eye.This level of research and the author's interpretation reminds me of [b:The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: An Elusive World Wonder Traced 16179911 The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon An Elusive World Wonder Traced Stephanie Dalley https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1354631905l/16179911.SY75.jpg 22034490], which I also enjoyed.

If one has been reading George R.R. Martin???s A Song of Ice and Fire series or has been watching its TV show adaptation Game of Thrones, then one is most likely familiar with the fact that most of the characters have one primary goal in mind: to sit upon the Iron Throne and rule Westeros. Well, I should say that their primary goal is to survive, but for many, the chance to rule Westeros, whether they do so through puppets or by themselves, is a goal they will risk everything to achieve. Now, most of the competitors are men, but quite a few of the main contenders are women: Cersei Lannister and Daenerys Targaryen, just to name two of the most popular (mentioning the others would be a risky dive into spoilers and fan speculation).

In any case, Cersei and Daenerys are an interesting study in contrasts. Their goal is the same: to rule Westeros. However, they are going about it in different ways: Daenerys, as the descendant of the overthrown dynasty that once sat upon the Iron Throne, intends to take back what is hers by conquest, whereas Cersei intends to hold power by using political clout, bribery, and blackmail, using her position as mother of the current king to her advantage. Of the two of them, Daenerys is the one who has clearly stepped into what the reader would likely consider a more traditionally ???masculine??? role, since most conquerers have generally been men. Cersei, on the other hand, is generally perceived as having taken a more traditionally ???feminine??? tack in her attempt to wield and hold power.

Which, of course, begs the question: why the distinction? Men are no less capable of playing manipulation games than women, and women are no less capable of violent action than men. The answer, of course, is that women have hardly been given the opportunity to carry out conquest: historically, men wielded both military and political power, while women dominated the home and (oftentimes, but not always) religious spaces. Women generally did not wield political power unless they were placed in a position to do so, which was not often, or they took it for themselves, which was even rarer.

Rarer still was the woman who could make it all work: lead a country well and efficiently, protecting it even while expanding it and making it more prosperous than before. History more often portrays women in power, particularly in the ancient world, as the downfall of a nation, her promiscuity and her greed often pointed out as the reasons for why nations fall when a woman is put in charge: consider Jezebel, for example, or Cleopatra. And while there are examples of successful female rule from more modern periods (Elizabeth I and Victoria being the most notable examples), the ancient world has a dearth of truly ???good??? female rulers.

This is a void that Kara Cooney attempts to address in her book The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut???s Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt. The book is a biography tackling Hatshepsut???s life, from her childhood as the most royal daughter of Thutmose I, and who, through carefully-considered decisions and use of both religious ideology and political reality, would rise to the pinnacle of ancient Egyptian power, turning herself into the supreme ruler of one of the wealthiest and most powerful civilisations at the time. During her reign, Hatshepsut would not only expand Egypt???s territory, but she would make it wealthier than ever before, as well as maintain peace throughout the realm she ruled. She would also set certain ideological and artistic precedents that would be followed by the rest of the Thutmoside dynasty, and build one of the most beautiful structures of ancient Egypt: her funerary temple at Deir el-Bahri.

But despite all these great achievements???achievements that would have been lauded in a male king???Hatshepsut was forgotten, something that was helped along by the fact that her heir and nephew, Thutmose III, attempted to erase all traces of her after her death. She was ???rediscovered??? in the 20th century, but misogynistic ideologies in the largely male-dominated discipline of Egyptology have twisted her story???a story that continues to be twisted even into the present.

Cooney???s book attempts to correct those mistakes???both Thutmose III???s, and Egyptology???s. Using careful research on the latest sources, Cooney describes Hatshepsut???s life as a constant struggle, not to grab power and hold it, but to do what was necessary: first, to maintain the dynasty her father had started by taking charge of the country when first her husband and then her nephew were too weak to do so; and second, to expand and enrich what was already there. She proposes that Hatshepshut was one of, if not the most, successful rulers of the ancient world, and that the fact that she is not more well-known is a result of deeply-entrenched misogynistic beliefs that dictate a woman who wields power beyond the spheres assigned her by men is only destined to fail, with often tragic consequences for those around her. If, however, she does not, then she must immediately be consigned to the dustbin of memory, her achievements assigned to the men around her. In writing her book, Cooney states, she is attempting to bring Hatshepsut into the contemporary world as an exemplar of power and womanhood???a source of insight to understanding why women, even in the twenty-first century, are locked out of positions of power, or are derided for their ambitions.

One of the things that I appreciate about Cooney???s book???and which I would appreciate in other books like hers???is that she makes it very clear that there???s a very big dearth of knowledge regarding her subject, and that, while she includes everything she believes is relevant to Hatshepsut, she always makes sure to clarify if the information she???s putting forward is based one evidence, or based on speculation. She makes it clear that there are absolutely not documents detailing Hatshepsut???s interior life???her personal thoughts and feelings???because that???s simply not what ancient Egyptians did, but that one cannot help but speculate on them anyway. So Cooney does speculate on things like emotions and personal motivations, but she always makes it clear that these are speculation only, and never tries to project any of it as fact.

This is, however, something some readers have taken a set against. They don???t like all the ???maybes??? and ???perhapses??? that Cooney inserts along the way, saying they weaken Cooney???s assertions and, therefore, her overall stand regarding Hastshepsut???s importance as a historical figure and an example for women today. I, however, think that Cooney is doing something right, making it very clear that, unless there is a sufficient body of evidence to support something she says, she will call it ???speculation??? and nothing more. She does this even to assertions made by other Egyptologists regarding certain matters germane to her book: for instance, she calls out Zahi Hawass on his claim that he has discovered Hatshepsut???s mummy, arguing that his evidence is still insufficient and that, therefore, he cannot conclusively claim that the mummy he???s labelling as Hatshepsut???s is, indeed, actually Hatshepsut.

However, other readers have remarked on another flaw of Cooney???s book, and this is one I rather agree with: the fact that it doesn???t have very good narrative flow. A good biography is, like any good book, one that tells a story very well???whether that story is fictional or historical isn???t really the point. The means that any good story must be able to read well, meaning it flows from one narrative point to the next with relatively little interruption, thus making it easy for the reader to truly sink into the book and become absorbed in it.

This book, however, does not do that. Even if one were to ignore the footnotes, the flow just isn???t what it should be. I attribute this to the fact that Cooney is more an academician than a storyteller; there is just a general feel of the academic paper about this book that I can???t shake off, and I suppose that it???s this feeling that makes some readers react negatively to its flow. I myself don???t mind, as I???ve had previous experience with reading academic papers (some of them far, far denser, and far, far less entertaining than this book), but I can easily understand if people don???t quite appreciate it when they went in expecting a biography, not a monograph. I feel the same way, incidentally: I was expecting to read something less academic than what I got, but again I suppose the book reads the way it does because this looks like Cooney???s first foray away from exclusively academic writing, and into something more for popular consumption.

Overall The Woman Who Would Be King is an interesting, and insightful, read. Cooney draws upon a rich well of updated information and research to bring Hatshepsut???s story into the twenty-first century, showcasing one of ancient Egypt???s greatest rulers as an example of a woman who reached the pinnacle of power through her own initiative and talent: someone to be emulated by women today, who may be looking for exemplars of what it is to be a woman who gains and wields power, and more importantly, succeeds spectacularly in her own lifetime. Cooney also does the responsible thing by drawing a line between fact and speculation, whether the speculation is her own or other people???s, wishing to give as clear a picture of Hatshepsut???s life and times as possible.

However, it???s also very clear that Cooney is not an experienced hand at writing popular nonfiction: the flow of her writing just doesn???t come as easily as might be desired, and has the overall feel of an academic publication. This is likely because this is Cooney???s first time writing a work intended for popular consumption, but hopefully in future she and/or her editors will be able to smooth out this problem and give it a less academic flavour???perhaps when she chooses to write a about some of the lesser-known women who ran Egypt in their time? I do believe Nitocris could use an image update.

I had not known about Hatshepsut, an interesting, smart, politically savvy woman who defied all odds and wisely used her connections and bestowed favors astutely in order to gain acceptance as not just daughter of king or wife of king or mother of king (actually, she never gave birth to a son so could not claim that title) but claimed the title of king itself, despite having an already acknowledged king on the throne. well done!