One ofThe Smithsonians 10 best history books of 2024

One ofBBC History Magazine‘s best books of 2024

Thoroughly researched and sprightly. a complete history of the [Mediterranean world] with the women added back in, as they always should have been.The New York Times

A dazzlingly ambitious history of the ancient world that places women at the centerfrom Cleopatra to Boudica, Sappho to Fulvia, and countless other artists, writers, leaders, and creators of history

Around four thousand years ago, the mysterious Minoans sculpted statues of topless women with snakes slithering on their arms. Over one thousand years later, Sappho wrote great poems of longing and desire. For classicist Daisy Dunn, these womenwhether they were simply sitting at their looms at home or participating in the highest echelons of powerwere up to something much more interesting than other histories would lead us to believe. Together, these women helped to make antiquity as we know it.

In this monumental work, Dunn reconceives our understanding of the ancient world by emphasizing women’s roles within it.The Missing Threadnever relegates women to the sidelines and is populated with well-known names such as Cleopatra and Agrippina, as well as the likes of Achaemenid consort Atossa and Olympias, a force in Macedon. Spanning three thousand years, the story moves from Minoan Crete to Mycenaean Greece, from Lesbos to Asia Minor, from the Persian Empire to the royal court of Macedonia, and concludes with Rome and its growing empire. The women of antiquity are undeniably woven throughout the fabric of history, and inThe Missing Threadthey finally take center stage.

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