Central Asia
In Which I Consider the Smithsonian Channel’s Epic Warrior Women
Last night My Own True Love, Ms. Whiskey-Cat and I settled in to watch the first episode of the Smithsonian Channel’s new series, Epic Warrior Women. The episode, titled “Amazons,” dealt with the women warriors of Scythia–an ancient culture of nomadic horsemen (and women) from the Central Asian steppes and the earliest known women warriors.…
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Jeannine Davis-Kimball’s Warrior Women
I am ashamed to admit that Jeannine Davis-Kimball’s Warrior Women–An Archaeologist’s Search for History’s Hidden Heroines sat on my shelf unread for months.* I looked at it early on in the research stage. I decided I wanted to own a copy so I could scribble in the margins. (As opposed to scribbling in the Margins.)…
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In Manchuria
Michael Meyer’s In Manchuria: A Village Called Wasteland And The Transformation of Rural China is a beautifully written blend of memoir, travel account, history and social commentary. In 2011, Meyer moved to his Chinese wife’s hometown–a Manchurian village with what proved to be the inappropriate name of Wasteland. He had lived in Beijing for several…
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