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She Caught the Light: Williamina Stevens Fleming: Astronomer
by Kathryn LaskyFrom Newbery Honor–winning author Kathryn Lasky comes a nonfiction picture book about the stars! Lasky tells the inspiring true story of astronomer Williamina Fleming, who helped lay the foundations for modern astronomy and overcame impossible odds as an immigrant and a woman. For stargazers and trailblazers everywhere.Jane Addams 2022 Children’s Book Award Finalist“Both an intriguing introduction to astronomy and an involving tale of a strong woman who overcame adversity.” —Kirkus Reviews“A compelling story and a fine addition to STEM studies.” —School Library Journal“This picture book biography illuminates how [Williamina’s] work chipped away at sexist barriers of the late 19th century.” —Publishers WeeklyEver since Williamina Fleming was little she was curious, and her childhood fascination with light inspired her life’s work. Mina became an astronomer in a time when women were discouraged from even looking through telescopes. Yet Mina believed that the universe, with its billions of stars, was a riddle—and she wanted to help solve it.Mina ultimately helped to create a map of the universe that paved the way for astronomers. Newbery Honor–winning Kathryn Lasky shares her incredible true story.Use this book to encourage conversation at home and the classroom about women and STEM. This is a captivating picture book that centers around women and empowerment, perfect for Women's History Month and to be shared alongside such powerful titles as Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly and She Persisted by Chelsea Clinton.Kathryn Lasky’s nonfiction book Sugaring Time was a Newbery Honor Book, and the books she authored in the Dear America and Royal Diaries series have sold over 3 million copies. Julianna Swaney is the illustrator of the #1 New York Times bestselling We Are the Gardeners by Joanna Gaines.
Vision of Beauty: the Story of Sarah Breedlove Walker
by Kathryn LaskyBorn just after slavery ended, and orphaned when she was seven years old, Sarah Breedlove Walker nevertheless had her dreams. Growing up, she longed for confidence and pride in herself-and she wanted to share this vision with other black women. Sarah stayed true to her dreams, as she found success in creating hair and beauty products for black women and spent her life sharing her innovations with others. In renaming herself Madam Walker, in founding the Mme. C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company, and in becoming one of the richest women of her time, she established herself as a role model for everyone--proving that if something can be envisioned, it can be achieved.
The Bunny Years
by Kathryn Leigh ScottA PROVOCATIVE AND INSIGHTFUL PORTRAIT OF THE BEAUTIFUL, FREE-SPIRITED, AND SURPRISINGLY INDEPENDENT WOMEN OF THE ICONIC PLAYBOY CLUBS The 1960s were a time of change in America, an era when safely guarded innocence gave way to explosive social revolution. For Kathryn Leigh Scott, or Bunny Kay as she was known in the New York City Playboy Club, and the more than 250 former Bunnies she interviewed for this book, donning satin ears and a fuzzy cottontail was an act of liberation--a chance to bridge the gap between being girls and becoming women, to earn more money than their own mothers ever fathomed, and to find their way in a world that would never be the same. Lauren Hutton was a Bunny. Deborah Harry was too. Bunnies went on to become doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers, real estate tycoons, nurses, scientists, entrepreneurs, and teachers. Called "a smart oral history" by Esquire and "entertaining" by Entertainment Weekly, The Bunny Years goes beyond Gloria Steinem's infamous magazine exposé, "A Bunny's Tale," beyond detailed instructions for perfecting the "Bunny Dip" and providing Keyholders with "efficient, friendly, personalized service," to explore, in the words of the remarkable women themselves, what it really meant to be a Bunny.
The Bunny Years: The Women Who Worked as Bunnies, and Where They Are Now
by Kathryn Leigh ScottA PROVOCATIVE AND INSIGHTFUL PORTRAIT OF THE BEAUTIFUL, FREE-SPIRITED, AND SURPRISINGLY INDEPENDENT WOMEN OF THE ICONIC PLAYBOY CLUBS The 1960s were a time of change in America, an era when safely guarded innocence gave way to explosive social revolution. For Kathryn Leigh Scott, or Bunny Kay as she was known in the New York City Playboy Club, and the more than 250 former Bunnies she interviewed for this book, donning satin ears and a fuzzy cottontail was an act of liberation--a chance to bridge the gap between being girls and becoming women, to earn more money than their own mothers ever fathomed, and to find their way in a world that would never be the same. Lauren Hutton was a Bunny. Deborah Harry was too. Bunnies went on to become doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers, real estate tycoons, nurses, scientists, entrepreneurs, and teachers. Called "a smart oral history" by Esquire and "entertaining" by Entertainment Weekly, The Bunny Years goes beyond Gloria Steinem's infamous magazine exposé, "A Bunny's Tale," beyond detailed instructions for perfecting the "Bunny Dip" and providing Keyholders with "efficient, friendly, personalized service," to explore, in the words of the remarkable women themselves, what it really meant to be a Bunny.
How to Lose Everything
by Philipp Mattheis Kathryn MalczykJonathan, Sam, Schulz, and Eric usually spend their summers hanging out at the park, skateboarding and dreaming about the time when they'll finally move out of the suburbs. But in the summer of 1994, the four teenagers find a small fortune hidden inside an abandoned house. What starts out as a blessing soon turns into a curse, however, as stress, drugs, and dwindling funds raise some serious questions about the future. Eighteen years later Jonathan returns to that life-changing summer to tally up the cost of that discovery, exploring how a broken dream led to a totally renewed sense of purpose.
The Whole Damn Deal: Robert Strauss and the Art of Politics
by Kathryn McgarrRobert S. Strauss was for many decades the quintessential Democratic power broker. Born to a poor Jewish family in West Texas, he founded the law firm that became Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, and?while forever changing the nature of the Washington law firm?worked as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, special trade representative, ambassador to the Soviet Union and then Russia, and an advisor to presidents. As former first lady Barbara Bush wrote of Strauss in her memoir: ?He is absolutely the most amazing politician. He is everybodyOCOs friend and, if he chooses, could sell you the paper off your own wall. OCO But it isnOCOt the positions Strauss held that make his story fascinating; it is what he represented about the culture of Washington in his day. He was a master of the art of knowing everyone who mattered and getting things done. Based on exclusive access to Strauss, The Whole Damn Deal brings to life a vanished epoch of working behind the scenes, political deal making, and successful bipartisanship in Washington.
The American President: A Complete History
by Kathryn MooreRemarkable and comprehensive, this single-volume reference offers a fascinating glimpse into the American presidency and its continuing evolution. It's organized chronologically and contains detailed personal and political profiles of each president, official portraits, timelines for every term, intriguing facts and stats, and much more. Readable, rigorously researched, and completely revised and updated to include the 2012 campaign and election, The American President paints a vibrant portrait of the highest office in the land.
The American President: A Complete History
by Kathryn MooreFully updated to include the 2016 election, this book is the most thorough, authoritative, and up-to-date single-volume reference to the presidency in print. In The American President: A Complete History, historian Kathryn Moore presents a riveting narrative of each president's experiences in and out of office, along with illuminating facts and statistics about each administration, timelines of national and world events, astonishing trivia, and more. Together, these details create a complex and nuanced portrait of the American presidency, from the nation's infancy to today—including Donald Trump&’s first year in office. - Best single-volume history of the American presidency on the market. - Fully updated to include the results of the 2016 election. - Updates include coverage of the first year of the Donald Trump presidency. - Appealing to readers looking for an objective and nonpartisan historical reference. - Unique reference guide for readers of American history.
True North: Finding the Essence of Aroostook
by Kathryn OlmsteadNorthern Maine retains qualities of life that many people long for in today’s world. The pace can be slower, nature is close, the beauty is breathtaking, and the people are authentic. Kathryn Olmstead, a transplant from Michigan more than four decades ago, considers it a place mysterious to those who have not been there and unforgettable to those who have. Her collection of essays gleaned from her years writing for Echoes magazine and the Bangor Daily News share her introductions to rural life and wildlife in an attempt to reveal the universal in the particular—the night sky and ice-out, the people and their cultural roots, and the intimacy with nature in every season. The title True North describes the quality of life portrayed in Olmstead’s essays—an orienting point, internal and geographic, that keeps a person on track in a world sometimes at odds with nature and with basic human goodness. Combined they affirm the value of tradition is still alive in places like Aroostook County, Maine.
Red Spy Queen
by Kathryn S. OlmstedWhen Elizabeth Bentley slunk into an FBI field office in 1945, she was thinking only of saving herself from NKGB assassins who were hot on her trail. She had no idea that she was about to start the greatest Red Scare in U.S. history.Bentley (1908-1963) was a Connecticut Yankee and Vassar graduate who spied for the Soviet Union for seven years. She met with dozens of highly placed American agents who worked for the Soviets, gathering their secrets and stuffing sensitive documents into her knitting bag. But her Soviet spymasters suspected her of disloyalty--and even began plotting to silence her forever. To save her own life, Bentley decided to betray her friends and comrades to the FBI. Her defection effectively shut down Soviet espionage in the United States for years. Despite her crucial role in the cultural and political history of the early Cold War, Bentley has long been overlooked or underestimated by historians. Now, new documents from Russian and American archives make it possible to assess the veracity of her allegations. This long overdue biography rescues Elizabeth Bentley from obscurity and tells her dramatic life story.
The Newspaper Axis: Six Press Barons Who Enabled Hitler
by Kathryn S. OlmstedHow six conservative media moguls hindered America and Britain from entering World War II &“A landmark in the political history of journalism.&”—Michael Kazin, author of What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party As World War II approached, the six most powerful media moguls in America and Britain tried to pressure their countries to ignore the fascist threat. The media empires of Robert McCormick, Joseph and Eleanor Patterson, and William Randolph Hearst spanned the United States, reaching tens of millions of Americans in print and over the airwaves with their isolationist views. Meanwhile in England, Lord Rothermere&’s Daily Mail extolled Hitler&’s leadership and Lord Beaverbrook&’s Daily Express insisted that Britain had no interest in defending Hitler&’s victims on the continent. Kathryn S. Olmsted shows how these media titans worked in concert—including sharing editorial pieces and coordinating their responses to events—to influence public opinion in a right-wing populist direction, how they echoed fascist and anti‑Semitic propaganda, and how they weakened and delayed both Britain&’s and America&’s response to Nazi aggression.
Lost & Found: A Memoir
by Kathryn SchulzAn enduring account of joy and sorrow from one of the great writers of our time, The New Yorker&’s Kathryn Schulz, winner of the Pulitzer Prize&“Our lives do indeed deserve and reward the kind of honest, gentle, brilliant scrutiny Schulz brings to bear on her own life. The book is profound and beautiful.&”—Marilynne Robinson, author of Housekeeping and GileadONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022—Oprah Daily, The Washington Post, Vogue, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Esquire, Chicago Review of Books, Town & Country, Electric Lit, The Rumpus, Lit HubEighteen months before Kathryn Schulz&’s beloved father died, she met the woman she would marry. In Lost & Found, she weaves the stories of those relationships into a brilliant exploration of how all our lives are shaped by loss and discovery—from the maddening disappearance of everyday objects to the sweeping devastations of war, pandemic, and natural disaster; from finding new planets to falling in love.Three very different American families form the heart of Lost & Found: the one that made Schulz&’s father, a charming, brilliant, absentminded Jewish refugee; the one that made her partner, an equally brilliant farmer&’s daughter and devout Christian; and the one she herself makes through marriage. But Schulz is also attentive to other, more universal kinds of conjunction: how private happiness can coexist with global catastrophe, how we get irritated with those we adore, how love and loss are themselves unavoidably inseparable. The resulting book is part memoir, part guidebook to living in a world that is simultaneously full of wonder and joy and wretchedness and suffering—a world that always demands both our gratitude and our grief.A staff writer at The New Yorker and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Kathryn Schulz writes with curiosity, tenderness, erudition, and wit about our finite yet infinitely complicated lives. Crafted with the emotional clarity of C. S. Lewis and the intellectual force of Susan Sontag, Lost & Found is an uncommon book about common experiences.
Lost & Found: Reflections on Grief, Gratitude, and Happiness
by Kathryn SchulzA Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker writer tells the story of losing her father and finding the love of her life in this profound meditation on grief and joy.Eighteen months before her beloved father died, Kathryn met Casey, the woman who would become her wife. Lost & Found weaves together their love story with Kathryn's story of losing her father in a brilliant exploration of the way families are lost and found and the ways life dispenses wretchedness and suffering, beauty and grandeur all at once. So much has been written about loss--and Schulz writes with painful clarity about the vicissitudes of grieving her father--but here she writes about the vital phenomenon of finding.The book is organized into three parts: "Lost," which explores the sometimes comic, sometimes frustrating, sometimes heartbreaking experience of losing things, grounded in Kathryn's account of her father's death; "Found," which examines the experience of discovery, from new ideas to new planets, grounded in her story of falling in love; and finally, "And," which contends with the way these events happen in conjunction and imply the inevitable: life keeps going on, not only around us but beyond us and after us. Kathryn Schulz has the ability to measure the depth and breadth of human experience with unusual exactness--she articulates the things all of us feel but have been unable to put into language. Lost & Found is a work of philosophical interrogation as well as a story about life, death and the discovery of one great love just as another is being lost.
War Dogs: Churchill & Rufus
by Kathryn SelbertWinston Churchill, the prime minister of England during World War II, was one of the greatest wartime leaders of the modern era. While he is often likened to the English bulldog due to his tenacious personality and even his physical resemblance to the breed, Mr. Churchill was actually a devoted poodle owner and held quite an affinity for his miniature poodle, Rufus, who withstood the trials of World War II by his owner’s side.Readers follow Rufus and Winston’s friendship through major events in World War II—from the bombings of London and the invasion of Normandy to post-war reconstruction. Secondary text includes quotes from Churchill himself—taken from his rousing speeches to the people of England and to the world. Backmatter includes a timeline of World War II, an author’s note about Churchill’s pets, as well as a short biography, quote sources, and a list of recommended resources for further study.In her debut picture book, Kathryn Selbert has created a unique look at a significant historical figure and period in world history.
The Gatekeeper: Missy LeHand, FDR, and the Untold Story of the Partnership That Defined a Presidency
by Kathryn SmithThe “fine biography” and “compelling personal story” (The Wall Street Journal) of arguably the most influential member of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration, Marguerite “Missy” LeHand, FDR’s de facto chief of staff, who has been misrepresented, mischaracterized, and overlooked throughout history…until now.Widely considered the first—and only—female presidential chief of staff, Marguerite “Missy” LeHand was the right-hand woman to Franklin Delano Roosevelt—both personally and professionally—for more than twenty years. Although her official title as personal secretary was relatively humble, her power and influence were unparalleled. Everyone in the White House knew one truth: If you wanted access to Franklin, you had to get through Missy. She was one of his most trusted advisors, affording her a unique perspective on the president that no one else could claim, and she was deeply admired and respected by Eleanor Roosevelt. With unprecedented access to Missy’s family and original source materials, journalist Kathryn Smith tells the “fascinating” (Publishers Weekly) and forgotten story of the intelligent, loyal, and clever woman who had a front-row seat to history in the making. The Gatekeeper is a thoughtful, revealing unsung-hero story about a woman ahead of her time, the true weight of her responsibility, and the tumultuous era in which she lived—and a long overdue tribute to one of the most important female figures in American history.
Mother Teresa: An Authorized Biography (The\lion Wisdom Ser.)
by Kathryn SpinkMother Teresa of Calcutta was the founder of the Missionaries ofCharity and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, but her story is so much moreremarkable. From her childhood in the Balkans to her work in India, from attendingthe victims of war-torn Beirut to pleading with George Bush and Saddam Husseinto choose peace over war, Mother Teresa was driven by a mighty faith.Newly revised and updated, this edition includes a personal insight into thebeatification and continuing process of canonization for Mother Teresa, theongoing work of the Missionaries of Charity, and her “dark night of the soul.”Mother Teresa consistently claimed that she was simply responding to Christ’sboundless love for her and for all of humanity, bringing to the world a great lessonin joyful and selfless love. This book is a glimpse into her extraordinary faith,work, and life.
God in the Rainforest: A Tale of Martyrdom and Redemption in Amazonian Ecuador
by Kathryn T. LongIn January of 1956, five young evangelical missionaries were speared to death by a band of the Waorani people in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Two years later, two missionary women--the widow of one of the slain men and the sister of another--with the help of a Wao woman were able to establish peaceful relations with the same people who had killed their loved ones. The highly publicized deaths of the five men and the subsequent efforts to Christianize the Waorani quickly became the defining missionary narrative for American evangelicals during the second half of the twentieth century. God in the Rainforest traces the formation of this story and shows how Protestant missionary work among the Waorani came to be one of the missions most celebrated by Evangelicals and most severely criticized by anthropologists and others who accused missionaries of destroying the indigenous culture. Kathryn T. Long offers a study of the complexities of world Christianity at the ground level for indigenous peoples and for missionaries, anthropologists, environmentalists, and other outsiders. For the first time, Long brings together these competing actors and agendas to reveal one example of an indigenous people caught in the cross-hairs of globalization.
Two Minus One: A Memoir
by Kathryn TaylorKirkus Best Books of 2018 &“You can quit waiting for the other shoe to drop: I&’m in it for life.&” Those are the fateful, repeated words that help convince Kathryn Taylor to remarry, retire from her thirty-year profession, sell her home, and relocate in support of her new husband&’s career. But five years later, in a car packed with food she has carefully prepared to nourish her husband&’s dying brother, the other shoe does drop. Taylor&’s husband unexpectedly proclaims he is, &“done with the marriage and doesn&’t want to talk about it.&” With this, the life Taylor has come to know is over. Relying on the strength of a lifelong friend who refuses to let her succumb to the intense waves of grief, she slowly begins to find her way out of grief. Over the course of two years, through appointments with attorneys and therapists, purging shared belongings, and pushing herself to meet new people and do new things, Taylor not only regains a sense of control in her life, she also learns to enjoy the new life she has built, the friendships she&’s formed—and to savor her newfound strength.
Brutus: The Noble Conspirator
by Kathryn TempestThis award-winning biography delves beyond the myths about Ancient Rome&’s most famous assassin: &“A beautifully written and thought-provoking book&” (Christopher Pelling, author of Plutarch and History). Conspirator and assassin, philosopher and statesman, promoter of peace and commander in war, Marcus Brutus was a controversial and enigmatic man even to those who knew him. His leading role in the murder of Julius Caesar on the Ides of March, 44 BC, immortalized his name, but no final verdict has ever been made about his fateful act. Was Brutus wrong to kill his friend and benefactor or was he right to place his duty to country ahead of personal obligations? In this comprehensive biography, Kathryn Tempest examines historical sources to bring to light the personal and political struggles Brutus faced. As the details are revealed—from his own correspondence with Cicero, the perceptions of his peers, and the Roman aristocratic values and concepts that held sway in his time—Brutus emerges from legend, revealed as the complex man he was. A Choice Outstanding Academic Title Winner
Daughters of Edward I
by Kathryn WarnerA colorful biography of five royal sisters in medieval England. In 1254 the teenage heir to the English throne took a Spanish bride, the sister of the king of Castile, in Burgos. Their marriage of thirty-six years proved to be one of the great royal romances of the Middle Ages. Edward I of England and Leonor of Castile had at least fourteen children together, though only six survived into adulthood, five of them daughters. Daughters of Edward I traces the lives of these five capable, independent women, including Joan of Acre, born in the Holy Land, who defied her father by marrying a second husband of her own choice, and Mary, who did not let her forced veiling as a nun stand in the way of the life she really wanted to live. These women&’s stories span the decades from the 1260s to the 1330s, through the long reign of their father, the turbulent reign of their brother Edward II, and into the reign of their nephew, the child-king Edward III.
Edward II's Nieces, The Clare Sisters: Powerful Pawns of the Crown
by Kathryn Warner“A great book to introduce you to three fascinating sisters whose marriages during the reign of the infamous Edward II transformed England.” —Adventures of a Tudor NerdThe de Clare sisters Eleanor, Margaret and Elizabeth were born in the 1290s as the eldest granddaughters of King Edward I of England and his Spanish queen Eleanor of Castile, and were the daughters of the greatest nobleman in England, Gilbert “the Red” de Clare, Earl of Gloucester. They grew to adulthood during the turbulent reign of their uncle Edward II, and all three of them were married to men involved in intense, probably romantic or sexual, relationships with their uncle.When their elder brother Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, was killed during their uncle’s catastrophic defeat at the battle of Bannockburn in June 1314, the three sisters inherited and shared his vast wealth and lands in three countries, but their inheritance proved a poisoned chalice. Eleanor and Elizabeth, and Margaret’s daughter and heir, were all abducted and forcibly married by men desperate for a share of their riches, and all three sisters were imprisoned at some point either by their uncle Edward II or his queen Isabella of France during the tumultuous decade of the 1320s. Elizabeth was widowed for the third time at twenty-six, lived as a widow for just under forty years, and founded Clare College at the University of Cambridge.“Another enjoyable read on women in history that don’t always get the limelight that they deserve. Kathryn Warner has done it once again by providing a well-written, well-researched, informative and engaging read.” —Where There’s Ink There’s Paper
Following in the Footsteps of Edward II: A Historical Guide to the Medieval King (Following In The Footsteps Ser.)
by Kathryn Warner&“Informed and informative . . . a meticulous example of outstanding scholarship, and an inherently fascinating read.&” —Midwest Book Review Edward II is famously one of England&’s most unsuccessful kings, as utterly different from his warlike father Edward I as any man possibly could be, and the first English king to suffer the fate of deposition. Highly unconventional, even eccentric, he was an intriguing personality, and his reign of nineteen and a half years, from 1307 to 1327, was a turbulent period of endless conflict and the king&’s infatuation with his male favorites, which ended when his own queen led an invasion of his kingdom. Following in the Footsteps of Edward II presents a new take on this most unconventional and puzzling of kings, from the magnificent Caernarfon Castle where he was born in 1284 shortly after his father conquered North Wales, to his favorite residences at King&’s Langley in Hertfordshire and Westminster, to the castle of Berkeley in Gloucestershire where he supposedly met his brutal death in September 1327, to Gloucester Cathedral, where his tomb and alabaster effigy still exist and are among the greatest glories surviving from medieval England.
Hugh Despenser the Younger and Edward II: Downfall of a King's Favourite
by Kathryn WarnerHugh Despenser the Younger and Edward II tells the story of the greatest villain of the fourteenth century, his dazzling rise as favorite to the king and his disastrous fall.Born in the late 1280s, Hugh married King Edward I of Englands eldest granddaughter when he was a teenager. Ambitious and greedy to an astonishing degree, Hugh chose a startling route to power: he seduced his wifes uncle, the young King Edward II, and became the richest and most powerful man in the country in the 1320s. For years he dominated the English government and foreign policy, and took whatever lands he felt like by both quasi-legal and illegal methods, with the kings connivance. His actions were to bring both himself and Edward II down, and Hugh was directly responsible for the first forced abdication of a king in English history; he had made the horrible mistake of alienating and insulting Edwards queen Isabella of France, who loathed him, and who had him slowly and grotesquely executed in her presence in November 1326.
The Granddaughters of Edward III
by Kathryn WarnerEdward III may be known for his restoration of English kingly authority after the disastrous and mysterious fall of his father, Edward II, and eventual demise of his mother, Queen Isabella. It was Edward III who arguably put England on the map as a military might. This show of power and strength was not simply through developments in government, success in warfare or the establishment of the Order of the Garter, which fused ideals of chivalry and national identity to form camaraderie between king and peerage. The expansion of England as a formidable European powerhouse was also achieved through the traditional lines of political marriages, particularly those of the king of England’s own granddaughters. This is a joint biography of nine of those women who lived between 1355 and 1440, and their dramatic, turbulent lives. One was queen of Portugal and was the mother of the Illustrious Generation; one married into the family of her parents' deadly enemies and became queen of Castile; one became pregnant by the king of England's half-brother while married to someone else, and her third husband was imprisoned for marrying her without permission; one was widowed at about 24 when her husband was summarily beheaded by a mob, and some years later bore an illegitimate daughter to an earl; one saw her marriage annulled so that her husband could marry a Bohemian lady-in-waiting; one was born illegitimate, had sixteen children, and was the grandmother of two kings of England.
The Rise and Fall of a Medieval Family: The Despensers
by Kathryn WarnerA historian’s fascinating account of two centuries in the lives of the powerful Despensers, famed for tragedy and scandal in medieval England.The Despensers were a baronial English family who rose to great prominence in the reign of Edward II (1307-27) when Hugh Despenser the Younger became the king’s chamberlain, favorite, and perhaps, lover. He and his father Hugh the Elder wielded great influence, and Hugh the Younger’s greed and tyranny brought down a king for the first time in English history and almost destroyed his own family.The Rise and Fall of a Medieval Family tells the story of the ups and downs of this fascinating family from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, when three Despenser lords were beheaded and two fell in battle. We begin with Hugh, Chief Justiciar of England, who died rebelling against King Henry III and his son in 1265, and end with Thomas Despenser, summarily beheaded in 1400 after attempting to free a deposed Richard II, and Thomas’s posthumous daughter Isabella, a countess twice over and the grandmother of Richard III’s queen.From the medieval version of Prime Ministers to the (possible) lovers of monarchs, the aristocratic Despenser family wielded great power in medieval England. Drawing on the popular intrigue and infamy of the Despenser clan, Kathryn Warner’s book traces the lives of the most notorious, powerful, and influential members of this patrician family over a two-hundred-year span.