SOURCE: "A History of Women at the Helm," in The Christian Science Monitor, June 7, 1989, p. 12.

In the following review of The Warrior Queens, Tirrell objects to some of the methods and assumptions in Fraser's study.

Within a pride of lions, it has always been the female of the species that hunted and killed. By contract humankind has traditionally relegated women to the home and family circle, often in an inferior status, and certainly far from the amphitheaters of battle.

Still, throughout history there have been women who have defied convention and risen to meet the exigencies of war, often leading their peoples to victory. This idea is the subject of Lady Antonia Fraser's newest work, The Warrior Queens, published earlier in Great Britain as Boadicea's Chariot.

Though it begins with a discussion of warrior queens from antiquity, such as Semiramis and Cleopatra, Part One of Fraser's book focuses...