It’s Women’s History Month, with the theme “leading the change”, and I want to celebrate all the unsung women who innovated, resisted and risked their lives to pave the way for the freedoms we cherish today. My book introduces 12 of these women from the C17th but there many more stories to be told

I don’t share the same view of radical religion as this blog, but I love the comment that my book has “rescued a significant number of radical women of the seventeenth century from what E.P. Thompson once called the “enormous condescension of posterity #voicesofthunder atrumpetofsedition.org/blog/

#emilybrontë, the most monstrously misrepresented of all our great writers. Her writing shattered the mould and we have yet to scratch the surface #wutheringheights #emilybronte

Back in the time when the sun was pink

Today's featured title: "Voices of Thunder: Radical Religious Women of the Seventeenth Century," by Naomi Baker, University of Chicago Press, 2025 @uchicagopress.bsky.social @drnaomibaker.bsky.social press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Today’s the day! 🎉 We're in Sam Alex SG.16 4–5pm for an EACW research seminar 'The Sweet Taste of Empire' - @profkfh.bsky.social in conversation with @fredschurink.bsky.social on sugar, empire and race. Join us!

A bunch of “greedy dumb-dogs”, men who “never have enough, and love greeting in the marketplaces … and the upper seats at feasts, and to be called … masters; they are filthy brute beasts” - Hester Biddle’s account of powerful men in the 1660s. How very little things have changed #earlymodern

Exactly this

Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again. #Pinks #ProudBlue

Is the real issue the implications for the careers of yet more powerful men? So tired of this being the only story that counts

A strange feature of #hamlet is the fact that the villain - Claudius - speaks a lot of sense. Here he is on the relationship of money and corruption - ring any bells?? “In the corrupted currents of this world/ Offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice”

A late Christmas with the in-laws brings goodies including @drnaomibaker.bsky.social's 'Voices of Thunder' – can'ty wait to delve into this!

The fact that a woman has become the #archbishopofcanterbury is not the astounding progress that it might seem, given that women were preaching in 1641! But they were vilified for doing so by the Church of England, which has taken a very long time to revise that view #earlymodern

'a nuanced picture of women’s religious activity' 📌 buff.ly/pyNlbyt 📚 buff.ly/RUgHzuD

Equal parts sweet and imperious 😻 #caturday #catsofbluesky

Adventurous, emotional, hopeful, informative, inspiring, mysterious, sad, fast-paced … it’s fascinating to see this reader’s description of “Voices of Thunder”! It’s sad that women’s stories have often been sidelined in history books because it’s a powerful thing to connect with women from the past

Very much enjoyed editing Helen Pierce’s richly informative and superbly entertaining history of the British political caricature, ‘The Profaned Pencil’. Out this October from @reaktionbooks.bsky.social.

Thank you Prof Alice Hunt for this wonderful review of Voices of Thunder in @historyextra.bsky.social magazine

Nay it is well and happy for the people if their King be but a cypher, being oft times a mischief, a pest, a scourge of the nation ~ John Milton

Certainly then that people must needs be mad or strangely infatuated, that build the chief hope of their common happiness or safety on a single person: who if he … be bad, hath in his hands to do more evil without check, than millions of other men ~ John Milton, 1660

Interesting to see US figures channelling Nietzsche’s praise of strength while claiming this can be reconciled with Christianity - the celebration of weakness over strength was the key reason Nietzsche hated Christianity

1656, when the new builds started popping up

Out in the USA since November, available in the rest of the world from today (but not from @princetonupress.bsky.social website!) press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Happy early morning discovery at Altrincham @waterstones.bsky.social - signed copies are now in store! ✍️📚#voicesofthunder #womenshistory

Am I the only one who has reservations about Hamnet? An inarticulate Shakespeare? A depiction of a marriage and parenting based on C21st models? A witchy earth mother who howls with grief and a male figure who by contrast channels his grief into art? All very dubious, in my book

This is a stunning resource, beautifully presented - congratulations to Ros Smith Kathy Acheson and their team emwmlibrary.com

“Scintillating” - am so grateful for this amazing review of Voices of Thunder by Prof. Elspeth Graham ✨ academic.oup.com/litthe/advan...

Such an honour to become co-Editor of Literature & Theology alongside @jocarruthers.bsky.social. My first published article as a PhD student was in this journal! We’re thrilled to be able to play a role in its future - please think about submitting any relevant articles @oxfordunipress.bsky.social

Out now! Open access in current issue of Renaissance Quarterly thanks to @ucdlibrary.bsky.social my thanks to everyone who helped me with this - but a special mention of the late Bríd McGrath for her wisdom, generosity and dedication to all the things that matter.

My podcast episode on the “Prophetesses and she-preachers of the 17th century” who star in my book Voices of Thunder is available now on the @historyextra.bsky.social podcast ✨ Access it wherever you access your podcasts! #earlymodern

“Women who defied the patriarchy and the Church of England to declare their truths to the world come to vivid life in Voices of Thunder” Very happy with this great review! unreachableshelf.weebly.com/on-the-shelf...

“… the thunder of women’s voices continues to roll.” Thank you @trudymorgancole.bsky.social for this fantastic review of “Voices of Thunder”. It means so much to me that you see the connections between the women I write about and the ongoing struggle for women’s voices to be heard #earlymodern

Thank you @ericanela.bsky.social for this fantastic review of Voices of Thunder in Quaker Studies! 🤩✨🌟 quakerstudies.openlibhums.org/article/id/2...

So happy to have finally gotten a copy of Dr Baker’s newest publication, just in time for Christmas break! An absolutely phenomenal read which brings to light the lives of the most extraordinary women.

I’m currently answering questions about Voices of Thunder on the thread below - ask away, if you have any questions! #earlymodern

The AMA is tomorrow!

It’s the US publication date of Voices of Thunder! 📚 It tells the stories of a dozen radical Protestant 17th-century women, including Quaker women who travelled to Boston and beyond #puritans #womenshistory #quakers #booklaunch #earlymodern

#earlymodern if I were to (note the conditionals) edit an anthology of verse by early modern women, what would you want to see in it? And what would you want it to do that isn’t covered by current options?

Thrilled with this great review of Voices of Thunder by @balancedachieve.bsky.social 📚

On @thejohnrylands.bsky.social blog, Dr Naomi Baker discusses one of the earliest known English conversion narratives by Rose Thurgood, giving us rare insight into religious women’s lives and beliefs in the decades before the English Civil War. Read more: rylandscollections.com/2025/10/17/t...

40% off all titles, including #VoicesofThunder! 🤩

Spotted in @waterstones.bsky.social Cheadle, so I signed a few. It’s still so exciting to see it in the wild 🤩📚#voicesofthunder #womenshistory #earlymodern

1 WEEK: Reflecting on Manchester Criminal Prosecutions 📅 17 Nov, 5pm 📍Sam Alex Building Book: https://ow.ly/ibxU50Xe7zX University of Manchester School of Social Sciences School of Arts, Languages and Cultures @uomlaw.bsky.social CoDE - Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity Garden Court Chambers

It was such a privilege to talk about Voices of Thunder with Jana Byars on the New Books Network podcast! Link below 🌟📚

Rosalia’s new album is about female mysticism, but reviewers are already saying it is “really” about her own break-up. A woman writes about the experience of self-transcendence and even then she is still assumed to only ever be writing about her own romantic experiences

Writing for The Conversation is great for many reasons - one of which is that you can see how many people have read your piece. Am amazed to see that my recent article about a 17th-century woman’s account of domestic abuse has had almost 30,000 reads! #earlymodern

Elizabeth Barton (1506-34) was a servant woman who defied Henry VIII, warning him that to marry Anne Boleyn would incur divine wrath. As I show in “Voices of Thunder”, female mystics were some of the fiercest critics of patriarchal forms of oppression - they posed a real threat to the status quo

Link here! mathewlyons.substack.com/p/ten-books-...

Very grateful to The Broken Compass for highlighting the women whose stories I tell in Voices of Thunder ✨

Voices of Thunder is one of ten books to look out for, according to Mathew Lyons in The Broken Compass 🤩 As he says, these “highly vocal women” have been “drowned out in much of the historiography” and make a “brilliant subject for a book”! 🌟 #earlymodern