Eleanor of Aquitaine (1124-1204), queen of France and England and mother of two kings, has often been described as one of the most remarkable women of the Middle Ages. Yet her real achievements have been embellished--and even obscured--by myths that have grown up over eight centuries. This process began in her own lifetime, as chroniclers reported rumours of her scandalous conduct on crusade, and has continued ever since. She has been variously viewed as an adulterous queen, a monstrous mother and a jealous murderess, but also as a patron of literature, champion of courtly love and proto-feminist defender of women's rights. Inventing Eleanor interrogates the myths that have grown up around the figure of Eleanor of Aquitaine and investigates how and why historians and artists have invented an Eleanor who is very different from the 12th-century queen. The book first considers the medieval primary sources and then proceeds to trace the post-medieval development of the image of Eleanor, from demonic queen to feminist icon, in historiography and the broader culture.

'Impeccably researched and beautifully written, this book offers a fresh perspective on one of the most controversial queens in history. Not to be missed.' Tracey Borman

The Historians of Angevin England is a study of the explosion of creativity in historical writing in England in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, and what this tells us about the writing of history in the middle ages. Many of those who wrote history under the Angevin kings of England chose as their subject the events of their own time, and explained that they did so simply because their own times were so interesting and eventful. This was the age of Henry II and Thomas Becket, Eleanor of Aquitaine and Richard the Lionheart, the invasion of Ireland and the Third Crusade, and our knowledge and impression of the period is to a great extent based on these contemporary histories. The writers in question - Roger of Howden, Ralph of Diceto, William of Newburgh, Gerald of Wales, and Gervase of Canterbury, to name a few - wrote history that is not quite like anything written in England before. Remarkable for its variety, its historical and literary quality, its use of evidence and its narrative power, this has been called a 'golden age' of historical writing in England. The Historians of Angevin England, the first volume to address the subject, sets out to illustrate the historiographical achievements of this period, and to provide a sense of how these writers wrote, and their idea of history. But it is also about how medieval intellectuals thought and wrote about a range of topics: the rise and fall of kings, victory and defeat in battle, church and government, and attitudes to women, heretics, and foreigners.

Since its first appearance in 2004, The Crusades: A Reader has been the go-to sourcebook in the field. S.J. Allen and Emilie Amt cover the entire crusading movement, from its origins to its modern afterlife, using key primary source documents. The third edition features a new introduction that includes a guide for students on how to use the book. The editors have also added more content on women, material culture, Jewish and Byzantine perspectives, Muslim-Crusader interactions, and modern use of Crusade imagery and rhetoric by the Far Right. The geographic range is broad, covering not only Crusades in the Middle East, but also in Spain and in northern Europe and against European heretics. While scholarship, courses, and textbooks on the Crusades have proliferated over the past twenty years, The Crusades: A Reader remains the only comprehensive, up-to-date, and in-print sourcebook available on the subject.

In Earnest, Earnest?, the speaker, Eleanor, writes postcards to her on-again-off-again lover, Earnest. The fact that her lover’s name is Earnest and that their relationship is fraught, raises questions of sincerity and irony, and whether both can be present at the same time. While Earnest can be read literally as Eleanor’s lover, he is best understood as another side of the poet’s self. The ambiguity at play in Earnest, Earnest? is embodied in the form of the “Earnest Postcards” that structure the book—these postcards are experimental in their use of images and formal in their dialogue with the sonnet. Thus, Earnest, Earnest? is a question of tone, address, and form.

Sure to take its place alongside the literary landmarks of modern feminism, Elaine Showalter's brilliant, provocative work chronicles the roles of feminist intellectuals from the eighteenth century to the present. With sources as diverse as A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Scream 2, Inventing Herself is an expansive and timely exploration of women who possess a boundless determination to alter the world by boldly experiencing love, achievement, and fame on a grand scale. These women tried to work, travel, think, love, and even die in ways that were ahead of their time. In doing so, they forged an epic history that each generation of adventurous women has rediscovered. Focusing on paradigmatic figures ranging from Mary Wollstonecraft and Margaret Fuller to Germaine Greer and Susan Sontag, preeminent scholar Elaine Showalter uncovers common themes and patterns of these women's lives across the centuries and discovers the feminist intellectual tradition they embodied. The author brilliantly illuminates the contributions of Eleanor Marx, Zora Neale Hurston, Simone de Beauvoir, Margaret Mead, and many more. Showalter, a highly regarded critic known for her provocative and strongly held opinions, has here established a compelling new Who's Who of women's thought. Certain to spark controversy, the omission of such feminist perennials as Susan B. Anthony, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Virginia Woolf will surprise and shock the conventional wisdom. This is not a history of perfect women, but rather of real women, whose mistakes and even tragedies are instructive and inspiring for women today who are still trying to invent themselves.

Unafraid to speak her mind and famously tenacious in her convictions, Eleanor Roosevelt was still mourning the death of FDR when she was asked by President Truman to lead a controversial commission, under the auspices of the newly formed United Nations, to forge the world’s first international bill of rights. A World Made New is the dramatic and inspiring story of the remarkable group of men and women from around the world who participated in this historic achievement and gave us the founding document of the modern human rights movement. Spurred on by the horrors of the Second World War and working against the clock in the brief window of hope between the armistice and the Cold War, they grappled together to articulate a new vision of the rights that every man and woman in every country around the world should share, regardless of their culture or religion. A landmark work of narrative history based in part on diaries and letters to which Mary Ann Glendon, an award-winning professor of law at Harvard University, was given exclusive access, A World Made New is the first book devoted to this crucial turning point in Eleanor Roosevelt’s life, and in world history. Finalist for the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award