Behind Every Great Man

This book should have been written years ago. Well written and interesting history of the invisible women who have helped change the world. A great gift for every junior executive and his or her spouse.

The length of the chapters was really perfect. It was just long enough to give us a good understanding of where each woman came from, how she met her famous (or infamous) husband, and what her life was like as a married woman. There was enough to get a sense of the woman without getting overly bogged down in detail. I thought her choices of women was terrific as they were all the wives of people I was familiar with but almost all the names were new to me. I know nothing about Einstein's first wife, or General MacArthur's wife and even less about Ghandi's wife. And poor poor Mrs. Oscar Wilde. The mix of women is fascinating. Some are tragic, some are heartbreaking-ly patient, some are crazy (Gala Dali comes to mind), but they are all passionate women who sacrificed so much to support their husband. Wagman-Geller's voice comes through and you get touches of her opinion on some of the men and dashes of humor which keep the book interesting but still a light read.

Con: If you're looking for an in-depth look on any of these women this isn't the book to go too. Also, if you're expecting to read about more famous Women behind the Men (like Abigail Adams or Marie Antoinette) this isn't the book for that. This is a book of women that truly were lost to history. Neither of these were negatives for me at all though.

Overall: The chapters in the book were addicting. Each time I came to a new chapter I thought "well I want to learn about her. I'll just read one more." I thoroughly enjoyed getting a look at the women behind (or propping up) the famous men!

I enjoyed reading about these women, yet found their tales bound up too much in their spouse's enough when the spouse had passed on and the woman lived alone for many years.