Fearless: Powerful Women of History (Minimum Wage Historian Book 1)

Fearless: Powerful Women of History

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Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Fearless by Zachary Hill. This is an unscholarly book about the amazing women found in history. It uses humor to examine the lives of these hard core, butt-kicking women that stood up against the Man in their own way. Some used swords and others used words, but each had courage.

This book is This is an unscholarly book about the amazing women found in history.

This book is inspired from the website, Minimumwagehistorian. Some of them are biased, some untrustworthy and others are lunatics. Each has their own slant on history and help us understand these women's stories. Kindle Edition , pages. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

To ask other readers questions about Fearless , please sign up. Lists with This Book. Jan 30, Kelly Knapke rated it did not like it. I hated this book. I read some of the negative reviews but the subject matter and writing style appealed to me so I gave it a shot. There are inconsistencies with the dating system used throughout the book, sometimes using AD and other times CE, other times not using it at all, and not always capitalizing it, minor things I know, but seriously?

I was also not a fan of the dialogue panel of other historical figures, because for the most part they were used to drop in pop culture references. The a I hated this book. The author clearly denotes that it is a non scholarly work but after reading him refer to some male figure as studly, which I haven't heard used by anyone over the age of sixteen in twelve years, I was ready to see if I could still return the book.

Dec 14, Liz rated it it was ok Shelves: I wanted to like this more than I did. The concept of a panal discussing or interviewing historical characters is an interesting and potentially fun idea. I love history and agree with Hill that it doesn't have to be boring. But it doesn't need to be dumbed down, modernized and exagerated to be interesting. Instrad of letting the details speak for themselves, Hill told the most shallow versions of these women's life stories possible, and tried to compensate by having quirky characters serve as p I wanted to like this more than I did.

Instrad of letting the details speak for themselves, Hill told the most shallow versions of these women's life stories possible, and tried to compensate by having quirky characters serve as panalists. It seems the author hoped that these panalists would capture attention, instead of telling the stories in a captivating way. It was a pretty big cop-out. Especially since one of these panalists lied throughout the book. How does that add to a history book? The way some of these panalists were treated bordered on racism. None of the panalists were native English speakers in their lifetimes, but the Native American, Russian and Japanese panalists were written with steriotypical accents.

If the author had done this with every panalist, it might have made sense.

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But why just those panalists? There are many better books about these women. You don't need to dumb down things to make them interesting. It seems Hill didn't know that. Aug 25, Shannon Guymon rated it it was amazing. A fun and irreverent look at history with a crazy cast of historical characters that guide the reader through history. This book finds women that were hugely influential and stood up for themselves against all odds.

Some are well known like Joan of Arc and Hua Mulan. Others are seldom mentioned in history like Anna Komemne and Tomoe Gozen. Less known, yes, but all kicked butt in their own way. He convinced the Crusaders to attack Constantinople. They proceeded to attack the largest Christian city in the world all for money and power. The Venetians knew what know one else did, that Constantinople had been taken over by steam powered robots invented by Archimedes. His creations went on to become self aware.

They learned to mimic humans and gained power in Constantinople. They took over the government, military and were poised to launch a marine invasion of Europe. An army of killer automatons were being prepared and if the Venetians could attack before the army was activated they could save Christendom. The Byzantine Empress in her true form. Hundreds of years old and a burning hatred of humanity. Then the poor Crusaders came along and they saw their answer.

Yes, they used the Crusaders, but it was for a most necessary cause. Gaspar here, just reminding you that Zach wrote a work of fiction, something I could never do. It has something to do with… reads from paper a Lovecraftian urban fantasy set in Miskatonic University.

Sounds lame but maybe you might like it. Check it out here. Anna Komnene — Welcome to another exciting episode and we have one of the most horrible and destructive wars in European history. The cyborg army tore across northern Italy and besieged Bucharest for thirty years until the Holy Roman Emperor sacrificed all of his necromancers to return all his dead soldiers into…. Anna — Just stop. Anna — To understand the Thirty Years War, we have to understand how it started.

The war took place mostly in Germany and involved armies of ruthless mercenaries that rapped and pillaged their way across the countryside. First, let me explain the Holy Roman Empire. It was made up of a thousand semi-independent duchies, lordships, cities and baronies. Everything from the countries of Austria and Hungary to small towns. Anna — Not only were all these semi-independent countries scrambling for political power and being influenced outside powers, they were also divided by religion.

There were Catholics, Lutherans and the newcomers, the Calvinists. And they all hated each other. The highest ranking nobles were called Elector Counts and they were the ones that voted for the Holy Roman Emperor. The Emperors were traditionally Catholic and they had a tendency to not let the other religions practice their beliefs.

Many of the counts had converted to Protestantism and pushed back against the catholic leaders. And to add to the confusion, many of the lands within the Empire were owned by the powerful family, the Hapsburgs. This same family also owned Spain and parts of Italy. They owned countries like personal property.

These same Hapsburgs really wanted to get the Dutch Republic back under their control. They had revolted and another fragile peace existed. Everyone knew the Spanish were just biding time until they could invade the Republic again. You, um…may notice his chin and under-bite.

Yeah, the Hapsburgs had a habit of marrying close relatives. Pine Leaf Woman — So it went back and forth with the different religions fighting for who would be top dog. Well, as this was going on the Emperor, Matthias would die without leaving an heir…a silly way to run a government if you ask me. So, before he died he named his cousin, Ferdinand as the next Emperor. Three was a problem though. Gaspar — Ferdinand was vampire.

At night he would venture out and create more vampire spawn that would spread across the Germanic countryside. Ferdinand created a new Vampire aristocracy that ran things from the shadows. Long story, but Ferdinand was elected as Emperor. Anna — No, not good. One of the worst, most pointless wars ever is about to occur.

The Bohemian revolt only grew and spread to neighboring countries. It was as if all the pent up anger and hatred over religion finally burst. Ferdinand called on his cousin, the king of Spain to come lend assistance. Pine Leaf Woman — Makes sense. Get into trouble, call your tribe. But then the rebels went looking for allies and found the Protestant Union led by a man that was also in line to be Holy Roman Emperor….

Anyway, the name of this man was Fredrick V. They promised this Fredrick that he would be king of Bohemia if he helped them in their revolt. Anna — In spite of this, the rebels did get support from other German countries, mostly in Austria and the rebellion grew. All very traditional requiring less training than shield walls and bows but more training in unit cohesion and tactics. Gaspar — This revolt spread outside of Germany. Elizabeth Stuart in England had people rally to her and in Transylvania a prince with the help of the Ottoman Empire launched attacks against Catholic countries.

Frederick went to the Ottomans for more direct support and the Ottomans offered cavalry and attacked Poland which was supporting the Catholic Hapsburgs. Their war went back and forth with no clear winner. Anna — Thank you, Gaspar for sticking to actual history. Finally the Holy Roman Emperor moved his forces to counter the rebellion. And at the battle of Sablat in he defeated the Protestant Union. Then the Spanish joined the war along with the Saxons creating an even bigger mess. Instead of tightly controlled field battles where one army forces another army off the field and declared victory, we have the emerging theory of total war.

No more honorable lords looking for the enemy general, instead we had armies and bands of mercenaries that were paid by whatever loot they could pillage. They massacred towns and stole entire crops from villages leaving the people starving in famine. Armies got larger, which cost more money and bankrupted entire countries. Also, the larger armies were harder to control which led to more criminal acts and bands of villains roaming the countryside.

Gaspar — Another change in military affairs was that the armies grew more professional.

The war lasted so long that government soldiers became an actual profession. The veterans passed down their knowledge and the manuevers grew more sophisticated and complex. The cavalry charges had to strike in conjunction with the gunners and retreat while the pikemen moved forward.

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All had to be timed just right to work. They had arquebuses with heavy armor, powder charges and uniforms. The powder charges reminds Zach of his magazine pouches in Iraq. It was disastrous for the rebels and the Hapsburgs ended up keeping Bohemia until they inbred themselves out of existence. Well, the Hapsburgs moved in and confiscated property from rebel leaders and Protestants and were basically jerks. Under the thumb of the Catholics it was pretty much the end of the Hussites. Anna — This begins a new phase of the war. The battles get a little smaller as the Spanish and other Catholic armies try to invade rebel territory.

The Dutch enter the war in greater force bringing their highly trained armies. Gaspar — So, basically we have all these armies going all over the place from Italy, to Austria to the Netherlands. Anna — A very abbreviated version, but not wrong. Pine Leaf Woman — It should all be nice and peaceful now, right? Because you Europeans are allergic to peace, the Huguenots in France decided to rise up in rebellion.

Louis began persecuting them and in response the Huguenots armed themselves and formed into militias to protect themselves. They also formed their own military structure and eventually their own government that tried to negotiate with foreign powers. The leader of the Huguenots was named Duc de Rohan and he wanted open war with the French crown.

Pine Leaf Woman — Too bad that this rebellion was not edifying for either side. Both the Crown and the rebels committed many atrocities and massacres. When both sides got tired, they drew up a treaty with no winners. Cardinal Richelieu at the siege of La Rochelle.

Anna — The war in the Netherlands grew hotter as the Spanish troops tried to reestablish control over what they considered a rebel province much like how the modern Chinese consider Taiwan. Even the Scottish sent down troops to fight the Spanish. Gaspar — And then things got crazier.

The Huguenots rebelled again, Poland was at war with Sweden and other rebellions and little wars erupted all over. Anna — The Holy Roman Empire tried to bully the smaller countries and somehow found itself invaded by Sweden.

War waged all over Europe and almost everyone was involved. The English, the French, the Transylvania and the Polish. It was a pretty crappy time for everyone. Anna — One thing to come out of all this constant warfare was that the Holy Roman Empire formed all the independent armies into one Imperial army. So no more private armies for all their little duchies and lordships.

The Spanish then invaded France and caused tremendous devastation. This part of the war went back and forth for years. Gaspar — It was a meat grinder but the French then began to win. It was one victory after another and France gained land from France on several fronts. The weakening of Spain made the rebels in Spain bolder and they broke out in open revolt. Anna — But then Portugal rebelled and declared independence…supported by France of course.

They were cut off except by sea. This made logistics for the war much harder. Go the post about logistics and see how important that really is. By the wars were mostly over. Except the war between Spain and France. In this time, Frederick and Louis had both died and their children were leading the countries. A good idea of how these battles looked. Squares of pikemen with gunners in the middle and cavalry charging in and out of the squares.

In fact, many parts of Europe were devestated and even depopulated. There was a massive reduction in population and the countries involved found themselves poor and in debt. Thousands of castles were destroyed, many more thousands of villages were wiped off the map and plagues were spread all over the continent. Gaspar — So, Spain was really weakened and had lost Portugal, territory and ships to go over to the New World. The Dutch gained their independence and Bavaria was basically depopulated.

Anna — Shut up. This was the end of vast mercenary armies marching across Europe, a fact of life that had existed for nearly a thousand years. Pine Leaf Woman — So, thirty years of untold death and destruction and not much good happened. Gaspar — The secret society of immortals, the Vashtanti were overthrown by the secret Catholic squad of assassins. With their tyranny overthown, the common people were now free to worship the ancient gods in the forest and open trade with the Dryads there.

The Dryads had waged a two thousand year war against the immortals and with their…. We have many meaningful discussions there. People communicate exclusively with memes and Gifs. A long time ago, there was a group of people called the Etruscans. They owned some land in central Italy including a small village of mud shacks along the Tiber River.

This was Rome and the Etruscans taught the local Latins everything they knew. The Latins were ruled by a bunch of Etruscan kings that ruled over the Latins like gangstas. Tarquinius wanted to punish Rome and attacked. During this attack, a hero with one eye named Horatius held off the enemy while his men destroyed the bridge behind him.

With their new independence and power as leader of the Latin tribes, they began to expand. They fought Etruscans, other Latins and after conquering and absorbing them, fought the Samnites. As they expanded they came across the Greek colonies in Southern Italy and those colonies called to their friends in Greece for help.

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Pyrrhus comes in and fights Rome. Once Pyrrhus hurried back home, Rome moved south and took over the entire Italian Peninsula. They were now big enough to get the attention of Carthage, the major power in the western Mediterranean. So, they began to fight over who was top dog. While Hannibal was messing around chasing down fleeing Roman legions, the Romans sneaked over and attacked Carthage directly. They burnt it to the ground and salted the earth.

Basically, they messed the place up. But then Greece got uppity again and attacked and Rome beat them back. Rome came in and gladly beat them back into Asia. Then Greece attacked again and Rome beat them back with little effort. Basically, Rome got tired of the Greeks always starting crap, so they just moved in and split Macedonia into three client states with rulers that would be much more agreeable to the Romans. Rome went through some growing pains including some revolts and a few slave uprisings. The largest was led by Spartacus. Well, he got what he asked for and was soon fighting all of Gaul.

He soon had all of France under his control and even invaded Britain a few times just because why not. Caesar united with two other Roman generals to restore the peace, but guess what, they ended up fighting each other too. General Pompey moved the Senate against Caesar and demanded that he give up command of his legions. He crossed the Rubicon River and burned the bridges behind him to show his men that there was no going back.

He went from Spain to Egypt where he hooked up with Cleopatra for a while. Caesar went, saw, and kicked butt. He became the most powerful man in the Republic and the Senate feared this. So they plotted and murdered Caesar. Well, this led, surprisingly, to another civil war in which a guy named Octavian came to power by beating Mark Antony and Cleopatra. He beat his former friend, Mark Antony like he was making whip cream. I think that guy should be me. Now that he was in charge eh strong armed everyone to do as he said.

Instead of elected rulers, it became a matter of succession by birth. There was Augustus who was good for the Empire, Tiberius who was a total scum bag, Caligula who was bat guano crazy, Claudius who was an interesting character and kind of alright, and finally, Nero who was less that stellar. They were followed by more super powerful but horrible people and somehow the Empire moved forward without destroying itself by incompetent leadership. There was eventually Commodus who was terrible and his rule usually marks the beginning of the decline of the Roman Empire.

Then there was a time where retirement from being emperor usually meant assassination. Finally, Diocletian, in an effort to stop the madness and decline, gave himself more power than any Roman Emperor had ever had. Eventually the problem was made worse when Barbarians from Germany started moving in.

Okay, this may surprise you, but soon the Empire fell into more civil war when the empire was split into three sections to be co-ruled. A general in Britain by the name of Constantine was declared emperor by his troops and marched on Rome. There he fought outside of Rome and won. He legalized Christianity with the Edict of Milan. He reorganized the Legions into two types, stationary border guards and rapid moving centralized legions. This was to counter the growing barbarian threats. The Empire is now in its final stage. Barbarians are encroaching on its territory by the day, the army starts losing major battles and at Adrionople, almost the entire Roman military is wiped out.

The power shifts east and the Western half gets left behind. Rome becomes a poor, crumbling place and the capital is moved to Milan and then Ravenna. Well, the Empire kept losing to Barbarians so eventually recruits barbarians into its ranks. These Germanic foreigners held no love or loyalty to Rome, but the knew how to fight so Rome used them. More and more the army became Barbarian until eventually it was the Barbarians with all the military muscle that called the shots.

Attila the Hun came in and Rome had its last big battle at Chalons where an alliance of Romans and barbarians that had set up shop in Gual fought off Attila and barely managed to survive. It continued on in name only until the Goth general Odoacer got tired of the middle man-emperor and disposed the young Romulus Agustulus. The Senate and some institutions lived on with the Senate lasting until at least when Charlemagne was crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

Oh, I forgot, I like maps. Check out this map of the Roman Empire from birth to death. Well so am I. I like old school and I say its rad. Powerful Women of History. Iz very nice if you like ze strong women kicking butt. And lastly we have Lord Cornwallis. Cornwallis — As unbiased as someone who spent their life fighting against a conquering nation. Zach — And moving on. The throne went back and forth between pro-Catholic and pro-Protestant and even a brief interregnum with a total joy-kill in charge named Cromwell. Eventually the Protestants won and got their king on the throne.

The royal family that remained Catholics, the Stuarts, ran off to Catholic France and waited for an opportunity to make a Travolta-esque come back. Charles thought the time was perfect. Buffalo — Yeah, but everyone disagreed with the guy. Must be the French influence. Zach — Just calling it as I see it.

Against all good advice, Charles lands in Scotland where the Catholic supporters were. He was basically by himself but soon gained a small following of 3, Highlander troops. Cornwallis — Let me impose briefly, good chap. Scotland was divided between the barbaric Highlands which remained Popish and the the Lowlands which were generally loyal to England and the Church of England. But he managed to scrape together 3, of them. With that measly 3,, he went on to take an undefended city of Edinburgh.

Anna — Hey, its progress. A city is a city. The English sent a small army to put this rebellion down. Cornwallis — Here we have a surprising success of the Scottish uprising due to the English being busy on the continent. It would take a few months to get forces from the mainland, a few months that Prince Charles could use to strengthen his position in Scottland and recruit even more angry Highlanders. By this time he had 5,, which is still a small number. He believed France would support him and launch an invasion and the rest of Scotland would also rise up.

It would normally be a fair bet because by this time England and France had had a bloody rivalry that went back to the Hundred Years Wars. They moved south and some thought he would go to Wales and use the anti-English sentiment there. Zach — For once, Charles decided to listen to his advisers and retreat back to Scotland. However, they did get a small force of French and Irish troops and got some guns.

Buffalo — Let me stop here and tell you a little about the Scottish clans. The major clans had many lesser families below them in a kind of feudal hierarchy. The richer clansmen were the landlords and officers and they were the ones with the famous claymores. Most of the rank and file had captured flintlocks. Cornwallis — They were brigands and ruffians with little training and less discipline.

The English army was of course, comprised of the best trained troops in the world. The Red Coats were the finest musket men and had legendary discipline.

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