Seven Men and Seven Women by Eric Metaxas

Author:Eric Metaxas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2018-08-27T16:00:00+00:00

SEVEN WOMEN

FOR SUSANNE

Contents

Introduction

1. Joan of Arc

2. Susanna Wesley

3. Hannah More

4. Saint Maria of Paris

5. Corrie ten Boom

6. Rosa Parks

7. Mother Teresa

Notes

Acknowledgments for Seven Men

Acknowledgments for Seven Women

About the Author

Introduction

Before I wrote this book, I wrote two long biographies, one about Dietrich Bonhoeffer1 and one about William Wilberforce.2 I was overwhelmed at the response to these books. It was clear that these stories had deeply impacted and inspired many readers, and though I knew the stories of many other extraordinary and inspiring figures, I didn’t plan to write any more long biographies. But then I realized that I could write shorter ones—and so I wrote Seven Men.3 The response to this book was also beyond what I had expected or hoped and further confirmed my belief that there is a great hunger for heroes in our culture.

Although I was never sure whether I would write a book that included the biographies of seven women, people kept asking me about it, and the more I thought about it, the more I knew that I must do it. I’ve always admired the women in this book and realized that many people didn’t know their stories. To be clear, in neither Seven Men nor this book is the list of seven persons in any way definitive. There are many other inspiring men and women I might have included. For each book I simply chose seven people whose stories I found most compelling and inspiring—and there’s no doubt that the stories of the seven great women in this book are hugely inspiring, and not just to women. I hope men will read these stories and not deny themselves the inspiration of these truly extraordinary lives. For the many men whose view of women has been twisted and dented by our cultural assumptions, these lives will be inspiring and encouraging news.

But whose stories should I tell? I began asking friends for suggestions and soliciting their thoughts. In doing so I encountered an assumption about women’s greatness that wasn’t surprising, but that is worth mentioning here. Many people suggested women who were the first ones to do something that men had already done. Amelia Earhart, who was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1932, was mentioned, as was Sally Ride, who was the first American woman in space. No one mentioned Shirley “Cha Cha” Muldowney, who was the first female Top Fuel dragster champion, but I’m sure she would have come up eventually. But what these women had accomplished didn’t exemplify the kind of greatness I had in mind—neither for men nor women. If it had, in writing Seven Men I would have replaced Wilberforce and Bonhoeffer with John Glenn and Charles Lindbergh—and might have replaced Pope John Paul II with Don “Big Daddy” Garlits or perhaps even Don “The Snake” Prudhomme, two of the greatest drag racers in history.

What struck me as wrong about these suggestions was that they presumed women should somehow be compared to men. But it seemed wrong to view great women in that way.

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