Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were each other's best friends, partners, and allies, yet from the outside they seemed an unlikely pair. Stanton was born into the prominent Livingston clan in New York, grew up wealthy, educated, and sociable, married and had a large family of her own. Anthony, raised in a devout Quaker environment, worked to support herself her whole life, elected to remain celibate, and devoted herself to progressive causes, initially Temperance, then Abolition. They were total opposites, yet complemented each other perfectly. Stanton was a gifted writer and radical thinker, full of ideas and fervor but pinned down by family reponsibilities, while Anthony, a tireless and single-minded tactician, was eager for action, willing to do the organizing that intimidated most women at the time. As Stanton put it, "I forged the thunderbolts, she fired them."

The main narrative revolves around the relationship between these two extraordinary women, as well as their interactions with major figures of the time, from Frederick Douglass and John Brown to Lucretia Mott and Victoria Woodhull. In telling their story, Ward and Burns have constructed a vivid and inspiring portrait of two of the most fascinating -- and important -- characters inAmerican history.