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Unfortunately, She was a Nymphomaniac

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What to expect

'Pacy, witty and authoritative' Jonathan Freedland

'In her hands, ancient history becomes a vivid avenue of approach to a burning modern-world concern… a powerful and important book' Daily Telegraph

A superb and illuminating history of Imperial Rome's most important women – dispelling the myths and misogyny that have distorted their reputations for over 2000 years.

Writer, activist and journalist Joan Smith has worked for years to raise awareness of violence against women and girls, and has been instrumental in bringing the innate misogyny of the police to public attention. Unfortunately, She Was a Nymphomaniac reinterprets the bloody, violent story of twenty-three women closely associated with the Julio-Claudian emperors of Rome. Fewer than half a dozen of them can be said with any confidence to have died of natural causes.

These were the wives, mothers and daughters of the emperors from Augustus to Nero, via their ‘mad’ relative Caligula. They were the most privileged women of their time, but their lives were overshadowed, dominated and controlled by these men. Raped, killed, ripped apart from their children and mostly airbrushed from history, Joan Smith brings their extraordinary and tragic stories back into focus. There are no nymphomaniacs here.

Instead, the book pieces together the human stories, showing how they struggled for control of their lives at a time when both the law and culture were stacked against them. These women shared in a spirited, inspiring and sometimes reckless resistance to male authority.

Smith brings to this history not only a fresh interpretation of the original texts but also an understanding of what we know now about the mechanics of domestic abuse. The way these women have been misrepresented for two thousand years speaks volumes not just about ancient misogyny but the origin and persistence of attitudes that continue to blight women’s lives today.

Critics Review

'An exhilaratingly revisionist account of the women from the Julio-Claudian dynasty... Smith is a polished and exhilarating writer of mordant wit. She guides the reader skillfully through the intricacies of this vast extended family... She makes the precious legacy of the western Classics serve a profound - and provocative - purpose' Daily Telegraph, Edith Hall

'Debunking misogynist myths of ancient Rome... this retelling of the lives of much-maligned Roman women sees their plight through a contemporary feminist lens' Guardian

'She argues passionately and credibly that these men were in fact 'sexual predators and callous abusers', too often given a free pass... a diligent attempt to correct the record, and no one can deny after reading it that the life of a woman in ancient Rome, even a very wealthy and well-connected one, was based on control by men and was often very dangerous' The Times

'Smith writes with great force about how women were abused and murdered on a horrifying scale in ancient Rome... Misogyny certainly wasn't built in a day. As Smith shows, Rome played its part in fostering present cultures, in which male violence is all too common' Independent

'What Joan Smith has done is remarkable: a wholesale challenge to rethink the Julio-Claudian dynasty' TLS

'Smith has combined two of her fiercest passions, Classics and feminism, to rehabilitate them. She picks out the misogyny woven into the ancient texts and draws uncomfortable comparisons to contemporary attitudes and sex-based violence' New Stateman

If anyone needed to drag the men of the Julio-Claudian Empire into the light to account for their treatment of the women in their lives, no one could do it more effectively than Smith'The Critic

'Joan Smith has fought for women her entire working life. Now she takes that struggle to the ancient world... she both opens up a new perspective on ancient Rome and sheds fresh light on our current world... Eye-opening' Jonathan Freeland, author of The Escape Artist

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