"The Ladies of Castile" by Mercy Otis Warren. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

In the first full-length study of Mercy Otis Warren (1728-1814) to appear in a generation, Professor Zagarri draws on recent work in social, political, and women's history to provide a penetrating analysis of one of the most fascinating women to live in the era of the American Revolution. A loving wife and the mother of five sons, Warren accepted the validity of traditional female roles. At the same time, events thrust her, as a member of one of the most prominent families in Massachusetts, into the centre of the revolutionary maelstrom. She became a poet, political satirist, and playwright of the patriot cause. Her works lampooned royal authority and helped galvanise resistance to Great Britain. As resistance became revolution, Warren formed a network of women friends whose writings provided support for one another and bolstered the war effort. Paradoxically, American victory brought disillusionment to Warren and her clan. Alarmed by the increasing superficiality and materialism of everyday life, she became a permanent critic of American society. The author of an influential anti-federalist tract, she never really reconciled herself to the new order. In 1805 she published her greatest work, History of the American Revolution, which even today is acknowledged to be one of the earliest and most accurate accounts of the period.

A major biography of the queen who transformed Spain into a principal global power, and sponsored the voyage that would open the New World. In 1474, when Castile was the largest, strongest, and most populous kingdom in Hispania (present day Spain and Portugal), a twenty-three-year-old woman named Isabella ascended the throne. At a time when successful queens regnant were few and far between, Isabella faced not only the considerable challenge of being a young, female ruler in an overwhelmingly male-dominated world, but also of reforming a major European kingdom riddled with crime, debt, corruption, and religious factionism. Her marriage to Ferdinand of Aragon united two kingdoms, a royal partnership in which Isabella more than held her own. Their pivotal reign was long and transformative, uniting Spain and setting the stage for its golden era of global dominance. Acclaimed historian Giles Tremlett chronicles the life of Isabella of Castile as she led her country out of the murky Middle Ages and harnessed the newest ideas and tools of the early Renaissance to turn her ill-disciplined, quarrelsome nation into a sharper, truly modern state with a powerful, clear-minded, and ambitious monarch at its center. With authority and insight he relates the story of this legendary, if controversial, first initiate in a small club of great European queens that includes Elizabeth I of England, Russia's Catherine the Great, and Britain's Queen Victoria.

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.