The epic story of the transformation of the American west, as seen through the eyes of the women who were there
‘This book is a triumph’ AMANDA FOREMAN
‘Absolutely compelling’ CHRISTINA LAMB
‘A blazing view of the American story’ BETTANY HUGHES
‘Gripping, eye-opening’ EMMA DONOGHUE
‘Richly evocative… the survivors were heroines, all of them’ YSENDA MAXTONE GRAHAM
‘Beautifully written’ CLOVER STROUD
Hard-drinking, hard-living poker players and prostitutes of the new boom towns; wives and mothers travelling two and a half thousand miles across the prairies in covered-wagon convoys; African American women in search of freedom from slavery; Chinese sex-workers sold openly on the docks of San Francisco; Native American women brutally displaced by the unstoppable tide of white settlers – all had to be brave-hearted women.
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Reviews
Beautifully written, this gripping book explores the stories of the fierce women who helped shape the American West.
A riveting new history.. Hickman's writing is exquisite; her background as a novelist brings these women into dramatic relief... A meticulous scholar, Hickman draws on diaries and memoirs to immerse us in these women's lives and offer important correctives... Brave Hearted is an alternative history of a frontier that was home for some and a fantasy for others long after the Census Bureau decided it was gone
A vivid, fascinating rag rug of cultural history that braids together stories usually kept apart . . . Gripping, eye-opening, enlightening
This book delivers a blazing 360 degree view of the American story. Each page is packed with gumption and grit and genius.
Brave Hearted is not just history, it is an incredibly intense page-turning experience. To read what these women endured is to be transported into another universe of courage, loss, pain, and occasionally victory. This book is a triumph.
Absolutely compelling; telling the stories of women who for so many years have been written out of history, and making us completely rethink our image of the Wild West.
In this richly evocative book, Hickman takes us to the crux of women's experiences in that fast- changing world, where opportunities for women were opening up in an often lawless atmosphere of greed, gambling, drinking and whoring. It was a rough ride, and the survivors were heroines, all of them.
Full of heartrending accounts of courage and tragedy, this is a vital contribution to the history of America's frontier.
An unforgettable cast of characters brings an epic tale to life.
As easy to read as any Western with the added advantage of showing a new version of the Old West, one vital for readers to explore.
A triumphant narrative that brings many overlooked women into the spotlight.
'Working mainly with published sources, [Hickman] has woven together an extraordinary range of women's first-person voices - we hear from more than fifty of them - into a gripping narrative.'
[A] wide-ranging survey of the multifaceted roles of women in the 19th-century settlement of the American West... Hickman writes sensitively... A welcome corrective to the long-skewed male-centric history of westward expansion.
In the past 50 years there has been an explosion of scholarly research that has served to dismantle those hoary old myths about the Wild West as a white male space in which women looked worried or sashayed into a saloon bar looking for trouble. In Brave Hearted Hickman makes deft and sensitive use of this new material. The result is a glorious patchwork . . . does these extraordinary women proud
Katie Hickman has gathered a collection of intriguingly vivid first-hand accounts written by some of the women who ventured west. . . Hickman's Brave Hearted puts the rough texture of personal experience back into the big narrative of how the west was won. Along the way, she shows us what was lost.