Bloody brilliant women : the pioneers, revolutionaries and geniuses your history teacher forgot to mention

‘A litany of fresh heroes to make the embattled heart sing’ Caitlin Moran A fresh, opinionated history of all the brilliant women you should have learned about in school but didn’t. In this freewheeling history of modern Britain, Cathy Newman writes about the pioneering women who defied the odds to make careers for themselves and alter the course of modern history; women who achieved what they achieved while dismantling hostile, entrenched views about their place in society. Their role in transforming Britain is fundamental, far greater than has generally been acknowledged, and not just in the arts or education but in fields like medicine, politics, law, engineering and the military. While a few of the women in this book are now household names, many have faded into oblivion, their personal and collective achievements mere footnotes in history. We know of Emmeline Pankhurst, Vera Brittain, Marie Stopes and Beatrice Webb. But who remembers engineer and motorbike racer Beatrice Shilling, whose ingenious device for the Spitfires’ Rolls-Royce Merlin fixed an often-fatal flaw, allowing the RAF’s planes to beat the German in the Battle of Britain? Or Dorothy Lawrence, the journalist who achieved her ambition to become a WW1 correspondent by pretending to be a man? And developmental biologist Anne McLaren, whose work in genetics paved the way for in vitro fertilisation? Were it not for women, significant features of modern Britain like council housing, municipal swimming pools and humane laws relating to property ownership, child custody and divorce wouldn’t exist in quite the same way. Women’s drive and talent for utopian thinking created new social and legislative agendas. The women in these pages blazed a trail from the 1918 Representation of the People Act – which allowed some women to vote – through to Margaret Thatcher’s ousting from Downing Street. Blending meticulous research with information gleaned from memoirs, diaries, letters, novels and other secondary sources, Bloody Brilliant Women uses the stories of some extraordinary lives to tell the tale of 20th and 21st century Britain. It is a history for women and men. A history for our times. 'A litany of fresh heroes to make the embattled heart sing' Caitlin Moran 'Newman is a brilliant writer' Observer A fresh, opinionated history of all the brilliant women you should have learned about in school but didn't. For hundreds of years we have heard about the great men of history, but what about herstory? In this freewheeling history of modern Britain, Cathy Newman writes about the pioneering women who defied the odds to make careers for themselves and alter the course of modern history; women who achieved what they achieved while dismantling hostile, entrenched views about their place in society. Their role in transforming Britain is fundamental, far greater than has generally been acknowledged, and not just in the arts or education but in fields like medicine, politics, law, engineering and the military. While a few of the women in this book are now household names, many have faded into oblivion, their personal and collective achievements mere footnotes in history. We know of Emmeline Pankhurst, Vera Brittain, Marie Stopes and Beatrice Webb. But who remembers engineer and motorbike racer Beatrice Shilling, whose ingenious device for the Spitfires' Rolls-Royce Merlin fixed an often-fatal flaw, allowing the RAF's planes to beat the German in the Battle of Britain? Or Dorothy Lawrence, the journalist who achieved her ambition to become a WW1 correspondent by pretending to be a man? And developmental biologist Anne McLaren, whose work in genetics paved the way for in vitro fertilisation? Blending meticulous research with information gleaned from memoirs, diaries, letters, novels and other secondary sources, Bloody Brilliant Women uses the stories of some extraordinary lives to tell the tale of 20th and 21st century Britain. It is a history for women and men. A history for our times. A fresh, opinionated history of all the brilliant women you should have learned about in school but didn't. In this freewheeling, feminist history of modern Britain, Channel 4 journalist Cathy Newman explores the motivations of the women who played a crucial role in the dramatic transformations that took place in British women's lives from the mid-nineteenth century onward. These were uncompromising women who seized – or created – opportunities for themselves and who refused to be bowed by tradition, convention, or their generation's hostile, entrenched views about gender. While a few of them are now household names, many more have faded into oblivion, their personal and collective achievements mere footnotes in the history we are told. We know of Emmeline Pankhurst, Vera Brittain, Marie Stopes and Beatrice Webb, but who, outside of academic circles, remembers engineer and chain-smoking motorbike racer Beatrice Shilling, whose device for the Spitfires' Rolls-Royce Merlin engines... In this freewheeling, feminist history of modern Britain, Channel 4 journalist Cathy Newman explores the motivations of the women who played a crucial role in the dramatic transformations that took place in British women's lives from the mid-19th century onward. These were uncompromising women who seized - or created - opportunities for themselves and who refused to be bowed by tradition, convention, or their generation's hostile, entrenched views about gender. While a few of them are now household names, many more have faded into oblivion, their personal and collective achievements mere footnotes in the history we are told -- Source other than Library of Congress