Women Who Ruled the World

5000 Years of Female Monarchy

By: Elizabeth Norton

Narrated by: Elizabeth Norton

A fascinating history of female rulers across time and across the world

Female kings have always been a rarity, an oddity, or an undesirable outcome. In almost all places on the globe a male ruler was preferred to a woman, with female inheritance vanishingly rare and frequently disputed. In spite of this, women have secured crowns—or fought for them—over several millennia.

This scintillating book tell the story of the female kings: women who risked everything, sometimes unwillingly, to find a place in a man's world. Women Who Ruled the World covers an exhilarating expanse of time and space: from the lush oases of Ancient Egypt to the cherry blossomed islands of Japan, from the nineteenth-century Queens of Madagascar who defied French attempts to colonize them to Tamar the Great, who presided over a golden age in Georgia. From the familiar—Boudicca, Cleopatra, Catherine to Great—to the unfamiliar—Urracca of Castile and Leon, Kushite queen Shanakdakhete, Lili'uokalani of Hawaii.

This groundbreaking book casts a global eye over five millennia of queenship, a truly remarkable feat of historical skill and breadth of knowledge.

©2025 Elizabeth Norton (P)2025 Tantor Media

Good but a little confusing

I liked this story and learned some things that I didn’t know. That being said, the jumping around between women and centuries was a bit confusing and felt disorganized.