It is also an inherently feminine virtue, given that almost every figure in this book faces – at least once, sometimes for their entire life, or (as in the case of Wu Zetian) fifteen hundred years of people telling them “no.” The guiding thread throughout the book’s subjects – being “brazen” – usually translates to defiance of some kind, and if the book has any guiding thesis it is the principle that defiance is an inherently noble virtue. The book places the rather less inspirational but no less interesting life of a Peggy Guggenheim (whose section is titled, quite cheekily, “Lover of Modern Art”) alongside the Apache warrior Lozen. The standard bearers of the early suffrage and feminist movements in the United States are absent, for one. Fame is no prerequisite for inclusion, which allows her to dig for more contemporary figures such as Leymah Gbowee, Winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize but hardly a household name in the English-speaking world. Bagieu has put a lot of effort into assembling a mixture of well- and lesser-known figures from around the world. Some of the names are probably familiar, but more than a few are not: you know Josephine Baker and Temple Grandin, but probably not Sonita Alizadeh or Frances Glessner Lee. Bagieu is French (the present volume is translated by Montana Kane), and that actually makes significant difference in emphasis. As such the book is most certainly aimed towards an audience of young women, destined to be given for birthdays and the like for years to come.īut the content is a bit more radical than one might expect from a similar book produced in the English-speaking world. Brazen is a compendium of brief potted biographies of famous and not so famous “Rebel Ladies who Rocked the World,” as the subtitle has it. You can imagine the type of person for whom this book was designed might find it quite satisfyingly dense. This is a thick book, a substantial weight in the reader’s hand. The best way in which to appreciate Pénélope Bagieu’s Brazen is to imagine the book’s ideal audience. Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked The World

Brazen by Pénélope Bagieu