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Queens of a Fallen World
- The Lost Women of Augustine's Confessions
- Narrated by: Georgina Sutton
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
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Queens of a Fallen World
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Publisher's Summary
The vibrant and surprising lives of the women in Augustine's Confessions
While many know of Saint Augustine and his Confessions, few are aware of how his life and thought were influenced by women.
Queens of a Fallen World tells a story of betrayal, love, and ambition in the ancient world as seen through a woman's eyes. Historian Kate Cooper introduces us to four women whose hopes and plans collided in Augustine's early adulthood: his mother, Monnica of Thagaste; his lover; his fiancée; and Justina, the troubled empress of ancient Rome. Drawing upon their depictions in the Confessions, Cooper skilfully reconstructs their lives against the backdrop of their fourth-century society. Though they came from different walks of life, each found her own way of prevailing in a world ruled by men.
A refreshingly complex and compelling portrait of Augustine, Queens of a Fallen World is the riveting story of four remarkable women who set him on course to change history.
What the critics say
"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
“An enchanting tour de force of sensitive and probing historical writing. Queens of a Fallen World reveals the traces of forgotten female voices in Augustine’s loves, losses, regrets, and consolations. Cooper’s enquiry into the influence of women on Augustine—whether empress, mother, lover, saint, or slave—enriches his legacy.”—Adrienne Mayor, author of The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World