I find it interesting, and not in a good way, how often historians have vilified women by emphasizing their roles as seductresses.

Case in point: When we refer to the widowed Old Testament figure, Judah, son of Jacob, most of us don't immediately think, "the guy who paid for a prostitute." But when we refer to Tamar, the woman he slept with, we do usually think of how she seduced him. (If we even know the story, that is.) Yet Tamar was within her levirate rights in seeking to establish a descendant named for her deceased husband. Judah was the one with banal motives.

Mention Bathsheba, and most think of the woman who "brought David down" rather than the woman David had his military guys sieze and bring to the palace for his pleasure. She probably thought the king was off at war and not standing on his palace balcony when she bathed on the rooftop (where people usually bathed, I might add).

When we think of Cleopatra, we usually think of the woman who seduced Caesar and Mark Antony, but when we think of Caesar and Mark Antony, do we immediately think of them as the guys who slept with hundreds of women? (Because they certainly did.)

One of the things I like about Stacy Schiff's November release, Cleopatra: A Life, is her focus on Cleopatra as a plain-looking, shrewd administrator. We know from coins that the queen herself would have approved that she was no Elizabeth Taylor look-alike. The woman was, however, a fantastic leader over a number of decades, if we consider how she cared for her people and assured peace for her nation.

A NY Times book reviewer put it well: "Instead of the stereotypes of the 'whore queen,' Ms. Schiff depicts a 'fiery wisp of a girl' who grows up to become an enterprising politician: not so much a great beauty as a charismatic and capable woman, smart, saucy, funny and highly competent, a ruler seen by many of her subjects as a 'beneficent guardian' with good intentions and a 'commitment to justice.'”

After a several-month break for comps, holidays and snow days, I'm reading the final chapters of Schiff's book. I predict it'll garner a stack of awards. Maybe even a Pulitzer. Such a terrific blend of research and insight.