American Heroines: the Spirited Women Who Shaped Our Country / by Kay Bailey Hutchison (William Morrow, 2004) Hardcover, 384 p. ISBN 9780060566357

American Heroines comprises brief biographical sketches of 45 American women and assessments of each one's significance and impact. It presents a remarkably varied selection of important American women spanning our entire history and highlighting accomplishments from different kinds of activities, including the arts, medicine, sports, aviation and politics.

Written by Texas Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, American Heroines avoids partisanship. She writes admiring portraits of Geraldine Ferraro and Madeline Albright as well as Condoleezza Rice and Elizabeth Dole, all in a lively and colloquial writing style. If anything is out of balance, it is the disproportionate number of Texans represented, but, after all, Hutchison is a Texan, and Texans greatly admire their state and its contributions to American society.

In writing American Heroines, Hutchison had no intention of providing a scholarly or intellectually challenging work. Instead, she provides an entertaining and highly personal look at some women who are well known, others who were once well known, and still others who never had a wide reputation, but nonetheless deserve recognition. American Heroines is an ideal book for dipping into and reading a chapter at a time in odd moments. If some chapter piques the readers' interest, finding a more thorough account of most of them should be fairly straightforward.

American Heroines puts on display the power and influence of women living in various times and under different social conditions. Many of these women personally inspired Senator Hutchison as she embarked on a political career that has culminated in her election as the first woman Senator from Texas. American Heroines would make an excellent gift for anyone who enjoys history, biography, women's studies, and books that need not be read from cover to cover. Every day, All-Purpose Guru Alert features one such good book at bargain prices. Past offers are still available, but only while supplies last.

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