It is in my opinion that she amply illustrates this thesis throughout her work. Moreover, it is this thesis that first introduced me to what ought to have been a self-evident fact of military history, but was not: That women as well as men are affected by, and active in, human military conflict.
Linda Grant de Pauw explores many of the major wars of Western military history from ancient times to the present in her book, discussing throughout the combative, logistical, and auxiliary roles women have played in them all. In doing so, she helped shape my interest in women's military history, broadened my interest in military history generally, and reaffirmed to me the importance of women in human history. Unfortunately, she did not also prove to be the best research model.
Historical Strengths and Weaknesses
The beauty of Linda Grant de Pauw’s work is in its breadth. She chronologically elucidates on more than six thousand years of human history, in a single volume, in a flowing and readable narrative style. However, this breadth is also her book's greatest weakness, for in only three hundred pages she but briefly touches on each of the topics she discusses, leaving the intellectually curiousity far from sated.
Furthermore, she repeatedly comes to very general conclusions based on very particular historical facts; she does not adequately defend most of her arguments; and her citations are not always from reliable sources. Sometimes they are downright anecdotal.
Linda Grant de Pauw’s most rigorously academic chapter is chapter five, entitled "The Age of Revolution." A subsection on the American Revolution found in this chapter, which is dedicated to the myth of Molly Pitcher, in particular, is very professionally done, with the topic being carefully dissected and analyzed over the course of five pages, and recalled many times afterwards. However, in the pages before and after this chapter, Grant de Pauw loses some of her academic vigor, and, as discussed above, many important figures and issues in women's military history are touched on in only a single paragraph or less.
The Purpose of Battle Cries and Lullabies
It needs to be noted, however, that Linda Grant de Pauw admits to her weaknesses. On the first page of her preface, she straightaway states that "[a] thorough study of this subject would require many volumes and the combined efforts of a team of scholars," and that "[one] historian working alone can do only so much." "My ambition for this work is modest," she continues, explaining that the book’s purpose is "to open a number of trails, marked in the endnotes with accessible English-language secondary sources, to illustrate the variety of research possibilities and to encourage other writers to follow me."
She concludes that "[t]he history of women in war is important and fascinating. To open the field for the explosion of wide-ranging scholarship that is now possible, someone had to go out on point." As is suggested by the tone of her conclusion, that someone is she.
In leaving so many topics unsatisfactorily explored in her book, she is thus inviting others to take up the slack, and produce more thorough papers or books on the subjects that she could pay only cursory attention to in her writing. She again and again points out historical women who led fascinating military lives, but have never had a biography written on them. She mentions trends in women's military history that have been unsatisfactorily researched or ignored all but completely, and bemoans the fact that no one is writing on them.
In all of this, her purpose is to invoke an excitement for the subject in her reader, and to prod them into action. "I wrote this book to provide both information and inspiration," she explains, on page xiv.
Conclusion
I feel that this book met its stated goal, and, despite its research and evidentiary weaknesses, I feel that it is worth reading. Anyone interested in women's military history or the role women have played in conflict through the ages will find this well-written book an entertaining and informative read.
Source
Linda Grant de Pauw. Battle Cries and Lullabies: Women in War from Prehistory to the Present. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998.
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