The Woman Who Would Be King

I won this book as a Goodreads first reads give-away. The book is about the reign of King Hatshepsut who ruled Egypt first as regent to her toddler nephew, Thutmose III, and then as co-king with him. Kara Cooney writes in the Author's Note at the beginning of the book that due to the length of time and the Egyptians superficial methods of reporting on a ruler's reign, there was a lot of conjecture in the book. This was distracting at times since the author would propose one theory for a large portion of a chapter and then end with...but maybe that person was already dead by that time or maybe the complete opposite reasoning was behind a particular outcome. She does this a number of times with Hatshepsut's daughter Nefrure, who was maybe being raised to succeed her mother when the tide changed against her. Or maybe she was dead.

I did like the book. It seems very well researched and it is an interesting defense of a woman that wielded great power for over twenty peaceful years. The author mentions many times how suspicious early Egyptologists where of her reign...assuming that she was a power-hungry bitch that stole the throne from the rightful heir. Nevermind that he was 2 or 3 years old at the time and quite unable to rule. Nevermind the fact that she was a successful ruler that greatly increased the wealth of Egypt during her reign. Nevermind the extensive building that she sponsored. There seems to be no evidence that she was not considered a good ruler and a great deal of evidence showing that she was the reason her dynasty was able to continue. When Thutmose III finally did elect to have her erased from the records, he intentionally did not do a complete job (taking out only references to her as King) and waited 20 years after her death to even do this. It seems likely he was motivated more to try and shore up the line of succession for his heir than to get rid of the evil usurper.

Overall though, I feel that the book would have made more sense at times if it were a well researched work of historical fiction than as a history book filled with so much theory.