Publisher's Weekly (March 21, 2011)

From its opening sentence--"Scandalous Women isn't history, it's herstory," Mahon sets a tone of whimsical accessibility that will be appealing to some and repellent to others. Most of the historical women covered here are discussed largely in the context of the men in their lives, from Anne Boleyn to Frida Kahlo to the brilliant mathematician and physicist Emilie du Chatelet, who is first identified as "Voltaire's Mistress." This is Feminist History for Dummies, with a snappy no-frills style that allows the author to cover ground and bring in lesser known females like Carry Nation, president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union in 1900, who busted bars to bits with an axe and inspired others to do the same. As a crash course in women's history, readers could do worse.



