Today is my stop on the blog tour for Shevolution by Lou Treleaven and Petra Braun which follows the history of women across 200,000 years through the profiles of female pioneers. This post introduces Tomoe Gozen, one of the women featured, and explains a little bit more about the book.
Tomoe Gozen
The Samurai were the aristocratic warrior class in Japan. If you were born into this class you were trained to fight. It was mostly men who fought in battle but women also carried weapons and were expected to defend their homes, children and crops. They were even presented with a knife on their wedding day. However there are also records of female samurai fighting in wars alongside men. Tomoe Gozen was the most renowned. By all accounts she was a fearless commander, and was described in an epic poem of the time as ‘a match for a thousand warriors’.
Shevolution
Shevolution profiles extraordinary women across times from a range of cultures. It explores women renowned for different activities, from fighting to writing to advocating for societal justice and many other things.
Unlike other books about inspirational women, Shevolution allows the reader to explore world history and how human civilisation grew through a female only lens. A profile might be about one woman or it might be about several. Page headings explain something that was happening at a particular time in history, such as the evolution of writing within the Classical Era.
Each profile is a page long and broken into a number of short paragraphs. It makes a good early introduction to world history and the concept that, although we study historical eras specific to one country, the histories of different countries are linked and that we have benefitted from knowledge and skills developed in other countries over the centuries.
Although some people might argue that world history should never exclude men, I would suggest that it can at times focus so much on men that it is worth having books that rebalance the equation. This is not a case of exclusion but of addition, ensuring children can learn that women’s roles in history were greater than that of their companionship to men.
This is a fresh take on non fiction about inspirational women and it is also a good early introduction to the concept of world history and just what this means. With so many fascinating facts, and a format that can be dipped into at leisure, Shevolution contains something to interest every young reader.
- Shevolution by Lou Treleaven, illustrated by Petra Braun, is available now. RRP. £14.99 (My copy was received as part of a promotional blog tour. With thanks to the publisher and publicist for sending)
