Janina Ramirez: Legenda – The Women Who Shaped Europe

Joan of Arc Lady Godiva and Isabelle of Castile are familiar names and summaries of their achievements have been recited in the classroom for decades. But they and other medieval woman have been misrepresented and their stories twisted and weaponised. At the same time, ground-breaking 18th and 19th-century women who blazed a trail through revolutionary Europe have been forgotten, their legacies dismissed or ignored. Historian Janina Ramirez questions established narratives and searches for the real women behind the legends. She discusses what defines a nation, who gets to build it, and how history is so often hijacked to serve the ideological and political interests of the present.

Book: Legenda – The Real Women Behind the Myths that Shaped Europe, W.H. Allen