War is about men-or so history has traditionally recorded. Men make the decision to go to war, men design and manufacture the weapons, and men do the fighting and dying. But this is only half the story. In reality, war is just as much a woman's domain. For thousands of years women have disguised themselves as soldiers in order to fight alongside men. Women have organized resistance, manufactured weapons, and led battles; they have been spies, assassins, couriers, nurses, revolutionaries, ambulance drivers, and vivandieres-and in disproportionate numbers, women have also been victims. In "Women and War: a Historical Encyclopedia from Antiquity to the Present," readers will learn that: hundreds of women disguised as men served as combatants during the American Civil War; a Russian woman officer raised the Soviet flag on Hitler's chancellery after fighting her way from the bottom floor to the roof; in the 19th century, the Kingdom of Dahomey maintained an all-female military unit consisting of 4,000 to 5,000 warriors; and one of Russia's most decorated snipers in World War II was a woman. As one scholar has written, "Women are invisible (in history) unless we look straight at them." "Women and War" does just that, bringing to light both heroines and villains-combatants, medical personnel, assassins, peace activists, spies, and secret agents in parts of the world as diverse as Vietnam and Algeria-involved in conflicts from the ancient world to contemporary times. For those eager to understand both the myth and the truth about women in war, both the heroism and the horror, these volumes are indispensable.

v. 1. A-K -- v. 2. L-Z.