Queens, courtesans, nuns, geishas, mothers, intellectuals, prostitutes, laborers, feminists: this unprecedented work gatheres the finest specialists on women's history to tell us their true stories. The authors deconstruct received notions of women that still affect us today, detailing their lives from Athens to ancient Rome, Medieval or Revolutionary France, 18th-century Japan, or 19th-century Paris; from palaces, homes, convents, workplaces; at war or in the streets fighting for their rights and lives.