Amazons of Black Sparta : The Women Warriors of Dahomey

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Amazons of Black Sparta : The Women Warriors of Dahomey
by Stanley B. Alpern
from NYU Press

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0

• Not just Amazons...
  We are talking about female soldiers with their own officers and uniforms, formed into units and trained to fight with muskets, machetes and their bare teeth. The first part of the book covers these subjects, plus the physical and insensitivity training they had to help them overcome pain and increase discipline.
  The second part deals with their history in battle from their first use against other tribes to their last battles against the French before the kingdom's downfall.

• A touch of history, a touch of war
  Amazons of Black Sparta is good reading whether your interest is military or ethnographic.

  The first half of the book is arranged topically, laying a groundwork for the campaigns that follow. Each chapter presents an aspect of Amazon life and the culture that produced it. The chapters stand alone, although the topics build on one another to give a well-rounded image of this unique fighting force.

  I found the cultural descriptions fascinating and, for the most part, well-researched particularly because I... more info

• The best-documented amazon warriors
  The mythical Amazons of Greek legend were probably inspired by eye-witness reports of female cavalry soldiers of the ancient Russian steppe. But most historical record of those fierce Sarmatian, Sauromatean, and Scythian civilizations, except for some recently excavated kurgans, has been lost to time. Over a million women fought in the Soviet armed forces in World War ll. And Eritrean women have been fully integrated in combat for the past thirty years in that impoverished nation's civil war with Ethiopia.... more info

• A gem of a book for history buffs
  This is truly a gem of a book for history buffs. It treats a heretofore unexplored topic in enlightening and fascinating detail. For professional historians also, Alpern's well-referenced history of the world's only known all-female fighting units is a singular contribution to the documentation of this unique combat force. Military aficionados should also consider this book essential reading for a more complete knowledge of the history of the world's fighting forces.

  For more than 200 years the kings of... more info

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