Royal Babylon: The Alarming History of European Royalty

See Larger Image	Manufacturer: Virgin Publishing Written By: Karl Shaw Average Customer Rating:


Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 920 EAN: 9780753503607 ISBN: 0753503603 Label: Virgin Publishing Manufacturer: Virgin Publishing Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 272 Publication Date: 1999-06 Publisher: Virgin Publishing Studio: Virgin Publishing
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Editorial Reviews: Hereditary rule once dominated European politics; a few families, all closely related and believing themselves divinely appointed, controlled the destinies of millions. Most of them were asked to leave -- sometimes politely, sometimes with a fatal abruptness. This book explains why. The present-day vagaries, eccentricities and downright absurdities of the much-discussed Windsors are as nothing to the excesses of their predecessors and here you will find them all. Lovingly detailed and tempered with irreverence, here is the essential, secret royal history.
Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: Lots of dish, but prejudiced and with a weak ending Comment: Be aware that Karl Shaw seems to have a very strong anti-royalist agenda, which he makes fairly clear from the first page to the last. Every time he says anything good about one of his subjects, he makes sure to overbalance it with several bad things. In fact, his relentlessly downbeat portrayals of several royals are very much at odds with those of other recent writers in the field (for example, compare and contrast Shaw's slashing attacks on Russian Czarinas Elizabeth and Catherine the Great with Eleanor Herman's much more sympathetic and nuanced portraits in her recent "Sex with the Queen"). Shaw seems bent on hammering home his theory that royals are actually _worse_ than just about everyone else, physically, mentally, medically, morally, socially. One might therefore expect him to close the book with an all-encompassing blast against the institution of monarchy, but instead, he basically wimps out with a limp few paragraphs about how the mystique of royalty still captivates people. Short version: entertaining nasty gossip, but you need to go elsewhere to get really fair portrayals of the people written about here. Customer Rating: Summary: Not Worth the effort or expense! Comment: I don't know why I bought this book--hoping to be entertained and informed I guess. It was an absolute waste of time and money. The book content was boring and repetitive. The author kept saying the same thing over and over. I couldn't finish it because it was such a dull read. I have read other babylon books and have found them interesting. This one, however, was not. I read the reviews before I bought it, but I should have passed on this book. Customer Rating: Summary: Kings, queens, nobles, lords, ladies and guffaws Comment: I read this excellent book, here in Brazil.This book is very fun.Kings, queens are the focus of this excellent book, but counts, barons, lords and even artists are also present. This very fun book tells about three centuries of madness, debautchery, drug adiction, sex, adultery, gays, lesbians,etc. among kings, queens, lords, ladies, nobles in Europe. If you want to read history and to laugh, this book is an excellent choice.As is book concludes and also shows that monarchy can be laughable, but as an institution it is far from dead worldwide. Customer Rating: Summary: I am glad I didn't buy this book... Comment: ...I found it at my local library. It's like reading news from National Enquirer! The author sounded like a cheesy tour guide: * Louis XVI was mistakenly referred to as Louis XIV's great-grandson * Louis XIV's sister-in-law was an English princess, somehow the author decided to move her birth place to Austria * Perhaps the author felt sorry for Louis XV, an only child orphaned at age two, so he made Louise de la Valliere, the well-known mistress of Louis XIV who left Versailles to become a Carmelite nun, his sister ...there are just too many obvious and laughable errors, makes you wonder if the author has ever heard of the word 'Google'! Customer Rating: Summary: A purchase that I regret Comment: This book was not at all what I had expected. What I thought I purchased was a book with amusing anecdotes about European royalty. What I ended up buying was a book filled with gossip, rumors, and just plain old trash. I could not even bring myself to finish it. Why taint the memory of anyone who is not alive to defend themselves? What ever happened to respect for the dead? This book is not worth the paper that it is printed on. Period. More Reviews