Michael O'Mara lands female-led world history from podcasters Katie Nelson and Olivia Meikle

Michael O’Mara has landed What’s Her Name: A History of the World in 80 Lost Women, a "delightfully engaging world history" from historians and sisters Dr Katie Nelson and Olivia Meikle, hosts of the What’sHerName podcast. 

Commissioning editor Ross Hamilton acquired world all-language rights directly from the authors for publication on 20th June 2024. 

"We are so excited to be publishing What’s Her Name," said Gabriella Nemeth, senior editor. "It’s such a refreshing book about world history, told through the stories of 80 utterly fascinating and inspiring ’lost’ women who everyone should know about. It is the perfect blend for a history book: entertaining and academically sound."

What’s Her Name tells an "alternative" historical narrative through the biographies of 80 "captivating" women, from leaders and warriors to artists and scientists, who "have been ignored, forgotten or actively suppressed". Among the women are Fatima al-Fihri, the founder of the world’s first university, and Ching Shih, a pirate. The history is told with Nelson and Meikle’s "wry wit" and will be published with maps and images throughout. 

Nelson commented: "For those who find world history boring, confusing or unrelatable, we wrote this for you. Our history books have been missing roughly half the characters. We’ve put them back in. Turns out, the human story is a cracking good yarn."

Meikle said: "Sharing the remarkable lives of each of these women felt a bit like pulling back a dusty curtain to shine a light on their incredible contributions to the world, and made us feel so proud and so lucky to be sharing the ’grand stage’ of history with them."