Joan of Arc: inspirational leader or flawed failure?

Welcome to the History Extra podcast. Joan of Arc's story is one of the most remarkable chapters in medieval history, that of a rebellious teenage peasant girl rising to become a military leader before suffering an equally precipitous fall from favour. But what leadership qualities contributed to her success? In today's episode, which originally featured in our History's Greatest Leaders series, entrepreneur and author of Next Gen CEO Mike Souter talks to historian Yanina Ramirez about Joan's story and the lessons it could offer for today's leaders. You can hear all eight episodes from the series on the History's Greatest Leaders feed.

Full details in the episode description. But for now, it's over to Mike and Yanina. Yanina, thank you so much for being with us today. An absolute pleasure, and this is one of my favourite things in the world to discuss today, so it's a joy. Brilliant.

Well, let's keep it going. I think we're going to have lots of chat about some of the controversy that sits behind the Maid of Orleans story, because we are going to be talking today about the 15th century peasant who became Joan of Arc, a saint and a French national icon whose death might even be more famous than her life. Yanina, why is it so important that we talk about what you have called, in Legenda, your book, the flesh and blood women who made the world rather than their sanitized, mythologized counterparts?

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