Jill Lepore, The Secret History of Wonder Woman

Abstract

Jill Lepore's The Secret History of Wonder Woman reads like a historical detective story. The story of the creation of Wonder Woman is really three intersecting stories about the origins of feminism and the birth control movement, and the unusual life of Wonder Woman's creator, William Moulton Marston. Lepore, who teaches history at Harvard and is a staff writer at The New Yorker, reaches beyond history and popular culture to reveal a treasure chest of secrets about Wonder Woman's creator and his uncommon and historically significant family. Lepore's wise, lucid and deeply researched book is a rewarding blend of cultural history, psychology and sociology, told with zest and a novelist’s command of narrative.