Our Take

Southon's great skill is making ancient history feel immediately, personally relevant without sacrificing rigor. She is funny in the way that only someone who knows their subject extremely well can be—the humor comes from understanding, not from playing fast and loose with the facts. Each of the twenty-one women she profiles is rendered with enough context and specificity to feel like a real person rather than a symbol, and the cumulative effect is a Rome that feels far more complex and interesting than the one most of us learned about.

The book is also, underneath its wit, genuinely angry—and productively so. Southon is clear-eyed about the mechanisms by which these women were written out of history and is not inclined to let anyone off the hook for it. That combination of humor and moral seriousness is what elevates the book beyond popular history into something more lasting.

Readers who loved Inferior by Angela Saini or The Invisible Woman by Caroline Criado Perez will find Southon in sharp, essential company. Also a natural pairing with SPQR by Mary Beard for readers who want the full picture of Rome, told without apology. A book that earns every superlative it receives.