This whole series is a wonderful resource, and this volume is the most intriguing reading of them all. Short, lively, accurate vignettes showing that women have always been active in a wide variety of fields.

Even though I adore ancient history, the format of most history books is, well, boring. Uppity Women of Ancient Times defies all sterotypes, though. With over two hundred women in this book, she dosn't get much room to talk about the individuals, but her wording is brief, modern, and perfectly hilarious. With this book not only can you relate to the charactors, but you can actually understand why the did the things they did (in most cases, at least). Full of clever, powerful, and just plain funny women, this book gives meaning to the saying "you go girl."

This is probably the worst book I have ever started reading. Never ever in my life had I left the book unfinished. But with this one, I simply couldn't afford to waste my time. I hoped to find a decent scholarly work on some of the most important women of old. But the criterion for the author seemed to be ANY mentioning of ANY woman in ancient documents. And needless to say, most of them are just a little bit more (or not even that) than your regular "street girl". I kept asking myself who did she write this book for? Who was her target audience? Her language is mediocre, vulgar and tedious. Did she want to be funny?! As someone has already said, it's a shame that she conducted such a serious research only to publish something that no historian will ever consider worth studying. Simply, it was an ordeal to read. Thank God I didn't waste my money on it. It was given to me as a present.

Ms. Leon is clearly a well-researched historian, and has endeavoured to provide useful information in easily digestible sound-bites for those who could otherwise be bored by history. Brava! I really enjoyed this book, and plan on getting the others in the series. People who never read history will be entertained by the short, informative, juicy little 1-page tidbits on each compelling woman. Ms. Leon presents a view of some of these women that is different for what I have seen elsewhere, and I would be interested in seeing how she arrived at some of her conclusions. Probably another story.

I enjoy the Uppity Women series by Vicki Leon greatly. I have read most of the volumes and have been lucky enough to purchase for myself a couple for my library. I will keep adding to the collection until I have every one. Some may find her style to be flip or fluffy. But, I think her writing is passionate and shows a deep love and affinity for women in history. If anyone who wrote the other reviews actually read the writing of women in history. In particular, travel literature by Isabelle Eberhardt, Flora Tristan, Isabelle Bird, Francis Trollope etc. You and they might see that women in history wrote about themselves in an exuberant, lively, fun and impassioned manner. Ms. Leon is only following in their brilliantly and unfortunately almost forgotten footprints. If you love women, literature, and history, please by the series and buckle up! It is a wild and wonderful ride through the world of women!

I received this book and its companion on Medieval women as gifts. One lives in the bathroom and one by my bed. I am deeply interested in history and was looking forward to learning about an often-overlooked segment of the population - the women, famous and not, who influenced and contributed in large and small ways to their times.

It's clear that Ms. Leon has done a lot of research, but her writing style is terribly irritating and ultimately gets in the way of the material. She could have written it in an informal conversational style that would have served the same purpose, that of making the material accessible and interesting, but she chose instead to use a dated, "cool" Daddy-O style that just doesn't suit the material or ring true to her voice. Hip jargon is cool only briefly, and people who try to be funny usually aren't; why did she find it necessary or appropriate to trash her research and insult the intelligence of her readers with her silliness? I appreciate her obviously extensive research and the fact that she included ordinary women as well as movers and shakers, because we really know very little about women in history, but then she undermined her own efforts with her ridiculous writing style. That's why I rate the book at 3 instead of 5 - the content is worth a 5 but it's hard to take seriously a work that its own author obviously didn't.

I feel sorry for the author, Vicky Leon, who is trying to appeal to the cheap side of her readers, if there is such a thing. She obviously has done a good amount of research, but her cliched, hackneyed writing style and attempts to be "cute" make it impossible for me to read with seriousness or enjoyment. Frankly, and I must admit this with some guilt, I bought the book just for factual information-- names, dates, general data-- but with chapter headings such as "Pharaohs, Physicians, Fat Cats & Filly-Fanciers" and "Singers, Sexual Stand-Ins & a Sassy Slave or Two" and practically every sentence containing duds such as "good old Sam," "put him off," "let it all hang out," "dear old grandma," etc., etc., etc., it's impinging on a clear desire to learn what I should already know....Ok, if I'm such a deadbeat, let's make it two and a half stars.

THis book was dry in some places and the stories seemed incomplete and the book did not flow. Some of the women featured did not seem great to me, at least not great enough to be featured in the book. THe women were portrayed to be male crazed and there seemed to be a great number of concubines who wanted power. The authors purpose of showing women were people too, who weren't just wives or the mother of.. was shown in some cases but in many they were just that. The book should have been comprised of longer stories of less women.

In her entertaining and excellent work Vicki Leon, has written biographies of some of the most famous, not so famous, and infamous women of the ancient world. Leon spins her tales of these women, who are indeed uppity, with humor, wit, and a knack for presenting them as real people not just historical figures. Many professional historians, and other fans of history would scoff at a book like this as not being serious history. However, history also need not be heavy, and dry. Why not make it an exercise in both learning and fun? This book is simply for the fan of history, who wants to enjoy it with a good laugh. And in this Leon has done a superb job, and I recommend her book highly.

An excellent book: very informative, witty, and easy to read. Leon celebrates 200 different women, most of whom I had not heard before, and not only from Greece and Rome. Several are from Africa and the Orient, and she even includes the amazing British Celt Boudicca