Around four thousand years ago, the mysterious Minoans sculpted statues of topless women with snakes slithering on their arms. Over one thousand years later, Sappho wrote great poems of longing and desire. For classicist Daisy Dunn, these women – whether they were simply sitting at their looms at home or participating in the highest echelons of power – were up to something much more interesting than other histories would lead us to believe. Together, these women helped to make antiquity as we know it.
Thoroughly researched and sprightly ... The book’s only serious failing is that it’s occasionally abrupt, skipping about from place to place too quickly.
Terrifically readable and deeply researched ... By turns authoritative, witty and revelatory, The Missing Thread feels like a book for our times and for all time.
