“Downey humanizes rather than idealizes her subject. successfully maneuvered in an almost exclusively male world of politics.” -Kathryn Harrison, The New York Times Book Review (Don't be a snob-that's a good thing.)” - TIME “A tale of feminist ambition that reads like a pulpy novel. Longlisted for the 2015 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography

Using new scholarship, Downey’s luminous biography tells the story of this brilliant, fervent, forgotten woman, the faith that propelled her through life, and the land of ancient conflicts and intrigue she brought under her command.įinalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize Yet history has all but forgotten Isabella’s influence. Whether saintly or satanic, no female leader has done more to shape our modern world. She also annihilated all who stood against her by establishing a bloody religious Inquisition that would darken Spain’s reputation for centuries. She sponsored Columbus’s trip to the Indies and negotiated Spanish control over much of the New World. She laid the foundation for a unified Spain. She ended a twenty-four-generation struggle between Muslims and Christians, forcing North African invaders back over the Mediterranean Sea. In 1474, when most women were almost powerless, twenty-three-year-old Isabella defied a hostile brother and a mercurial husband to seize control of Castile and León. An engrossing and revolutionary biography of Isabella of Castile, the controversial Queen of Spain who sponsored Christopher Columbus's journey to the New World, established the Spanish Inquisition, and became one of the most influential female rulers in history.

Isabella warrior queen