Archives par étiquette : Starre Vartan

THE REAL LIVES OF OUR FEMALE ANCESTORS de Starre Vartan

From the author of The Stronger Sex comes this fascinating exploration of the overlooked story of women in human history.

THE REAL LIVES OF OUR FEMALE ANCESTORS
by Starre Vartan
Hachette/Basic Books/Seal Press, 2027
(via The Martell Agency)

For 97% of our shared past, humans lived in egalitarian communities. Yet most of the story we tell about “early man” is written from a male-centered perspective—hunters, fighters, inventors—while women are relegated to the sidelines. But new science tells a different story. DNA evidence, burial goods, isotopic analysis, and archaeological finds all point to the centrality of women: they were hunters, innovators, traders, artists, healers, builders, and leaders. Vartan combines cutting-edge research with vivid storytelling and her own immersive fieldwork—grinding pigments, cooking with replica cookware, wearing ancient-inspired clothing—to reconstruct how women actually lived from the Neolithic through the Middle Ages.

Like Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens, Cat Bohannon’s Eve, and Rebecca Wragg Sykes’s Kindred, this book reframes the human story—with women restored to the center. It offers sweeping history written with intimacy, voice, and urgency.

Starre Vartan brings authority and reach to the subject. A seasoned science journalist with credits in National Geographic, Scientific American, The Washington Post, Slate, Aeon, and many more, she has a BS in Geology, a Biology minor, and an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from Columbia. Her recent book, The Stronger Sex, has established her as a bold new voice reshaping the cultural conversation about women’s bodies and strengths.

THE REAL LIVES OF OUR FEMALE ANCESTRORS is more than a work of history—it’s a reclamation. It challenges entrenched assumptions and offers readers a chance to see themselves in the lives of women who carried, created, discovered, led, and endured. At once rigorous and accessible, it promises to inspire, educate, and captivate a wide, cross-disciplinary audience.

Starre Vartan is a science writer who was raised in a family of creatives and medical professionals. She grew up in New York and now splits her time between the Pacific Northwest and Sydney, Australia. She contributes regularly to Scientific American and National Geographic and has written for CNN, the Washington Post, Slate, and New York magazine, among many others. Her investigative journalism for NatGeo in early 2022 on how the DNA technique used to catch the Golden State Killer is being used to track elephant ivory smugglers and convict wildlife criminals.

STRENGTH & POWER de Starre Vartan

STRENGTH & POWER will explore the groundbreaking current research that examines the myths and shatters our misconceptions relating to the ingrained belief that still very much holds sway today: men are physically stronger than women.

STRENGTH & POWER:
The Untold, Ignored, and Belittled Science of Women’s Bodies
by Starre Vartan
Seal Press/Hachette US, 2025
(via The Martell Agency)

Vartan undertook the project of looking for the scientific evidence to back this proposition up and…couldn’t find it. The book will examine the actual data, the history of “male only” baselines in past studies, and the extensive body of current research that proves that women aren’t “weaker,” in fascinating, eye-opening counterintuitive detail, such as:

• women’s muscles retain strength over time better than men’s;
• women’s fat and metabolism are huge advantages for any pursuit that requires endurance;
• the biology of women’s brains makes women far more resilient in the face of stress.

The bottom line is that men’s bodies are generally good at certain physical pursuits—while women’s are generally better at others. But how you get from there to the idea that men are overall stronger? That is the crux of this challenging and provocative book that will draw on cutting edge studies and touch on a wide range of topics: women’s athletic training, women’s performance in long-distance events across multiple sporting disciplines, women’s longevity, the role that menstruation, hormones and distribution of body fat play in women’s physical power and, of course, the profound cultural influences that have long governed society’s view of women’s physical capabilities.

Starre Vartan is the ideal person to write this book. Her science background and proven effective interaction with researchers with two decades of writing, a decade of founding and running a popular women’s health and lifestyle website and social media platforms, and recent work in investigative journalism, all point to her expertise as an independent science journalist with deep media experience, with a range of contacts both in the science publishing space, and in the women’s health and lifestyle area. On the science side, she has written on health for CNN and biotechnology and health for Scientific American, is a contributor to such publications as Nat Geo, Treehugger, Slate, Gizmodo, The Daily Beast and New York magazine. Her long-form investigative piece on the scientists exiting the Trump administration was published at the end of 2020 in Undark and a piece of investigative journalism for NatGeo in early 2022 on how the DNA technique used to catch the Golden State Killer is being used to track elephant ivory smugglers and convict wildlife criminals.