The Woman Who Would Be King

The Woman Who Would be King by Kara Cooney

The story of Hatshepsut from the 18th Dynasty in Egypt, around 1479 BCE. It covers how her father became king, then her brother, who died very young, and her nephew was crowned king as a child. Hatshepsut took over the reins of power in Egypt, first as regent and then later as king. After her death, her nephew systematically removed evidence of her kingship, perhaps to help his own son’s ascent to kingship.

 

Overall, I found this really interesting. I struggled with the beginning where Cooney speculates about what Hatshepsut’s childhood might have been like. It was a lot of “maybe she did this, or maybe she did this, we just don’t know.” The fact is that we don’t know much about ancient Egypt and what we do know is very filtered through what the king wanted written down and preserved in stone. It got more interesting in later chapters when Cooney started discussing Hatshepsut’s rise to power because we have more evidence of what happened during that time period. 

 

Cooney does her best to make Hatshepsut into a human figure, rather than a mystery, but I think there’s just too little known about Hatshepsut for anyone to paint a clear picture. In the final chapters she discusses previous Egyptologists’ thoughts on Hatshepsut, how they perceived her as power hungry or worse. Cooney’s picture of Hatshepsut, while still vague, does give a more nuanced look at a woman who rose to power peacefully and ruled well for 20 years in a time before women were considered able to rule.