Book review: Angela Saini (2025). The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule. Thessaloniki: Salto Publications, Callistos Series.

The book review written by Christina Grammatikopoulou on Angela Saini’s book focuses on the ways in which the book dismantles the naturalisation of gender hierarchies and presents patriarchy as a historical and cultural construct, consolidated through narratives of the past, scientific certainties, and political strategies of power. Drawing on examples that range from archaeology and prehistory to the Cold War and the contemporary conservative turn, the book demonstrates how Western models of social organisation were retrospectively projected onto other periods and societies, rendering patriarchy self-evident and inevitable. Particular emphasis is placed on the ways in which women’s emancipation has been framed as a universal project, detached from class, cultural, and political conditions, as well as on the role played by crises, wars, and ideological confrontations in the hardening of gendered stereotypes. Through this reading, the review highlights Saini’s contribution to opening up a critical field of reflection on the contemporary rise of anti-feminism and nationalist conservatism, underscoring the importance of localised, embodied, and historically situated forms of feminist resistance.