The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut’s Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt
This biography of Hatshepsut, the female pharaoh whose successors attempted to erase her from the historical record, charts a rise from king’s daughter in the royal nursery to pharaoh’s wife, regent to an infant pharaoh, and finally pharaoh herself. Cooney illustrates that many women reigned in Ancient Egypt – but as powers beside or behind the throne. Hatshepsut put herself forth as a successful pharaoh in her own right, in the process usurping power from her stepson, Thutmose III. Her building projects and political acumen are undeniable, but the perennial problem of a bio based on a spotty historical record is paramount here: Cooney can only make educated guesses as to the rest of Hatshepsut’s life. The prose is clear and engaging, but speculation is rampant and repetition pads out the page count. This book is structured to appeal to infotainment drama lovers (ie, graphic focus on sexuality, bodily ailments, etc.), complete with baseless psychoanalysis. Some passages read like pure fiction because they are – Cooney is creating a narrative that’s plausible, but with little (or, in some cases, no) hard historical evidence to underpin it. To give her credit, she does delineate the line between the two. Overall, a very readable popular overview of Hatshepsut’s life and times…as long as its postulations aren’t confused with historical/archaeological fact.
