Kara Cooney Awarded Popular Book Award by ASOR

Kara Cooney received the 2019 Nancy Lapp Popular Book Award, presented by the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), for her book When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt. The award recognizes the author/editor of a book published in the last two years that offers a new synthesis of archaeological or textual evidence intended to reach an audience of scholars, as well as students and the broader public. Founded in 1900, ASOR’s mission is to initiate, encourage, and support research into, and public understanding of, the history and cultures of the Near East and wider Mediterranean world. Cooney is professor of Egyptian art and architecture and chair of the Department of Near East Languages and Cultures at UCLA.

“Kara Cooney injects an important and timely topic into popular discourse,” noted ASOR’s Honors and Awards Committee Chair Laura Mazow when presenting the award. “Not only is When Women Ruled the World a fascinating book on its own—a tour de force of the highlights of Egyptian history from Dynasty 0 through the Ptolemies – but Cooney’s specific focus then invites us to reflect on broader questions about the historic role of female leadership and its implications in the modern world,” Mazow continued. “Cooney’s book serves as a great example of how studies of ancient societies can be made relevant and interesting to a general audience and, in doing so, can raise provocative questions that very much still matter today,” she concluded.