Welcome

The ten books of history I’ve written have a common thread. They all focus on unsung heroes—people of courage and conscience who helped change their country and the world but who, for various reasons, have slipped through the cracks of history. Since eight of the books deal with war, specifically World War II, it’s not surprising that most of the heroes I’ve spotlighted have been men. My latest three books, however, are exceptions.

Madame Fourcade’s Secret War is about a woman—a young mother of two who just happened to be the leader of France’s largest Allied spy network during World War II.

Empress of the Nile follows in Madame Fourcade’s footsteps. It’s about another strong-willed, trailblazing, history-making woman who fought back against the Germans—an Egyptologist named Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt, who after the war was responsible for the greatest archaeological rescue in history.

My latest book, The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück, which will be published on June 3, 2025, is the third volume in this trilogy of books about remarkable, previously unsung heroines of the French Resistance. Sisterhood focuses on a group of audacious French résistantes who were captured by the Gestapo and sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp, where they banded together to help each other survive and to sabotage the German war effort. Read more about it here.

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Praise for Lynne’s Writing

Fast-paced and impressively researched…Olson writes with verve and a historian’s authority.
—The New York Times Book Review
(on Madame Fourcade’s Secret War)

Lynne Olson’s many fans know her gift for storytelling and bringing to life heroes who may not be well known but demand—indeed, rivet—our attention.
—NYT bestselling author Evan Thomas
(on Empress of the Nile)

[Olson] doesn’t so much revisit a historical period as inhabit it; her scenes flicker as urgently as a newsreel.
—The Christian Science Monitor
(on Those Angry Days)

About Lynne

Lynne Olson is a New York Times bestselling author of ten books of history, most of which focus on World War II. Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has called her “our era’s foremost chronicler of World War II politics and diplomacy.”