Brave with Beauty: A Story of Afghanistan

A 2020 Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People

This is the extraordinary story of Queen Goharshad, a 15th-century monarch, who many historians now believe was the one of the most powerful women in world history. Ruling from the Timurid artistic and cultural center of Herat in western Afghanistan, Queen Goharshad ushered in a remarkable period when poetry, music, calligraphy, painting, and the sciences flourished as never before. A poet and an architect, she designed some of the m...