Royal Babylon: The Alarming History of European Royalty
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List Price: $14.95 $10.17 $ 4.78 ( 32% ) Broadway Karl Shaw
Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 940.280922EAN: 9780767907552ISBN: 0767907558Label: BroadwayManufacturer: BroadwayNumber Of Items: 1Number Of Pages: 336Publication Date: 2001-05-29Publisher: BroadwayRelease Date: 2001-05-29Studio: Broadway
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Editorial Reviews: Royal Babylon chronicles the manifold appalling antics of Europe's famous families, behavior that rivals the characters in an Aaron Spelling television series. Here, then, are the insane kings of Spain, one of whom liked to wear sixteen pairs of gloves at one time; the psychopathic Prussian soverigns who included Frederick William and his 102-inch waist; sex-fixated French rulers such as Philip Duke D'Oreleans cavorting with more than a hundred mistresses; and, of course, the delightfully drunken and debauched Russian czars - Czar Paul, for example, who to make his soldiers goose-step without bending their legs had steel plates strapped to their knees. But whether Romanov or Windsor, Habsburg or Hanover, these extravagant lifestyles, financed as they were by the royals' badgered subjects, bred the most wonderfully offbeat and disturbingly unbelievable tales - and Karl Shaw has collected them all in this hysterically funny and compulsively readable book. Royal Babylon is history, but not as they teach it in school, and it underlines in side-splitting fashion Queen Victoria's famous warning that it is unwise to look too deeply into the royal houses of Europe.
Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: Lots of dish, but prejudiced and with a weak endingComment: 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.
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 guffawsComment: 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.
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:
Customer Rating: Summary: A purchase that I regretComment: 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?
