Queens of a Fallen World: The Lost Women of Augustine’s Confessions (Paperback)

Fascinating and well-written, Queens of a Fallen World raises vital questions about the role of women in the founding centuries of Christianity, piecing together a rich backdrop to Augustine's life that has rarely emerged before. Cooper convinces us that these women can be recovered, and that through his words and thoughts, their lives shaped the future of a fledgling religion. A brilliant new take - Janina Ramirez, author of FEMINA: A NEW HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES, THROUGH THE WOMEN WRITTEN OUT OF IT

A masterpiece of the historian's art. With a rare balance of state-of-the-art erudition and felicitous hypotheses, Kate Cooper has brought the hidden women in Augustine's early life into the light. Governed throughout by a humane sense of the texture of a distant late Roman society, she captures women's voices which we would not otherwise have heard - Peter Brown, author of AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO: A BIOGRAPHY

What an invigorating book! Cooper asks a haunting question: how different would our world be had this man married either his concubine - who was the loyal mother of his child - or the young heiress he was betrothed to, instead of withdrawing from sexual relationships altogether? - Sarah Ruden, translator of Augustine’s CONFESSIONS

A marvelous achievement . . . Cooper sketches an evocative landscape of the late Roman world in Milan and North Africa . . . Above all, her's is a world of human beings suffering heartache and loneliness while trying to reconcile the pull of the heart with the lure of ambition - Susanna Elm, Sidney H. Ehrman Professor of European History, University of California, Berkeley

A bold and imaginative venture into challenging territory. Cooper casts new light onto the women of the ancient world - and one of the founders of Western thought - Sarah Gristwood, author of THE TUDORS IN LOVE: PASSION AND POLITICS IN THE AGE OF ENGLAND'S MOST FAMOUS DYNASTY