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Eleanor Herman

Eleanor Herman

NY Times Best Selling Author Co Author, King Peggy: An American Secretary, Her Royal Destiny, and the Inspiring Story of How She Changed an African Village

New York Times best-seller Eleanor Herman offers a rare combination of skills for a historian – her research is intensely scholarly.

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Bio

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New York Times best-seller Eleanor Herman offers a rare combination of skills for a historian – her research is intensely scholarly, yet she writes the story in a colorful, witty manner. She has appeared on The National Geographic Channel’s popular show, The Madness of Henry VIII, and has hosted shows for The History Channel’s Lost Worlds program. She is the author of Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge, Sex with the Queen: 900 Years of Vile Kings, Virile Lovers, and Passionate Politics, Mistress of the Vatican: The True Story of Olympia Maidalchine, the Secret Female Pope and most recently, Eleanor co-wrote King Peggy: An American Secretary, Her Royal Destiny, and the Inspiring Story of How She Changed an African Village.

Herman stayed with King Peggy in Otuam, for about a month and chronicled the astonishing journey of an American secretary who suddenly finds herself king to a town of 7,000 souls on Ghana’s central coast, half a world away. Upon arriving for her crowning ceremony in beautiful Otuam, King Peggy discovers the dire reality: there’s no running water, no doctor, and no high school, and many of the village elders are stealing the town’s funds. Peggy’s first two years as king of Otuam unfold in a way that is stranger than fiction. In the end, a deeply traditional African town has been uplifted by the ambitions of its headstrong, decidedly modern female king. And in changing Otuam, Peggy is herself transformed, from an ordinary secretary to the heart and hope of her community. Eleanor who was also greatly transformed from this journey, continues to help spread King Peggy’s message of empowerment to women.

“History is so fascinating that it never has to be presented in a boring way,” Herman explains. “These were flesh and blood people, just like you and me, facing war and plague, falling in love, living among splendid art and gut-wrenching poverty. Sometimes people ask me if I plan to write novels. And I say, with all the things that really happened, who needs to make stuff up?”

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Topics

Topics

As vice-chair of the National Press Club’s Book & Author Committee, Eleanor has introduced and moderated talks by Madeleine Albright, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, John Grisham, and many other celebrities. Her lectures are extremely popular with women’s group

Videos

Videos

Eleanor Herman, "The Royal Art of Poison"
Eleanor Herman

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