A colorful collection of dynamic, prodigiously researched portraits.
The opulent, eventful lives of four dynamic 18th-century women.
Goldstone, who specializes in collective biographies of queens, creates a panoramic history of 1700s Europe in her story of a remarkable female dynasty: Maria Theresa (1717-1780), “Holy Roman Empress [and]…the only female member of the Habsburg family, for centuries the predominant dynasty in Europe, ever to rule in her own right”; and her three daughters: Maria Christina (known as Mimi) (1742-1798), governor general of the Austrian Netherlands; Maria Carolina (Charlotte) (1752-1814), queen of Naples; and Marie Antoinette (1755-1793), infamous queen of France. Drawing from histories, biographies, memoirs, and letters, Goldstone vividly depicts a resplendent, glittering milieu. Her fast-paced, populous narrative teems with gossip, court intrigue, and head-spinning political machinations, not least Maria Theresa’s efforts to make propitious marriages for her daughters, preferably with royals who could enhance her empire’s fortunes. Charlotte was sent off to Italy at the age of 15, fearful and distraught, with only a letter from her mother hinting at the demands of married life and her political future. Maria Theresa had stipulated in the marriage contract that after she produced a son, Charlotte would claim a seat on the royal council—an event that catapulted Charlotte to power in 1775, when she was 22. Marie Antoinette was married at 14 to the French dauphin, a man who was probably autistic and needed instruction from his brother-in-law on the mechanics of sex. Goldstone illuminates the military, political, economic, cultural, and social complexities that each woman faced as well as the personal challenges, including continual pregnancies (Maria Theresa had 16 in 20 years); children’s deaths; raging smallpox; and, for Maria Theresa, Charlotte, and Marie Antoinette, unhappy marriages. Goldstone is an empathetic biographer, highlighting the women’s considerable achievements as well as their shortcomings: Maria Theresa’s “intractable anti-Semitism,” for example and the frivolity, extravagances, and self-indulgence that eventually sent Marie Antoinette to her death.
A colorful collection of dynamic, prodigiously researched portraits.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-316-44933-5
Page Count: 624
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Essential reading for any Twain buff and student of American literature.
A decidedly warts-and-all portrait of the man many consider to be America’s greatest writer.
It makes sense that distinguished biographer Chernow (Washington: A Life and Alexander Hamilton) has followed up his life of Ulysses S. Grant with one of Mark Twain: Twain, after all, pulled Grant out of near bankruptcy by publishing the ex-president’s Civil War memoir under extremely favorable royalty terms. The act reflected Twain’s inborn generosity and his near pathological fear of poverty, the prime mover for the constant activity that characterized the author’s life. As Chernow writes, Twain was “a protean figure who played the role of printer, pilot, miner, journalist, novelist, platform artist, toastmaster, publisher, art patron, pundit, polemicist, inventor, crusader, investor, and maverick.” He was also slippery: Twain left his beloved Mississippi River for the Nevada gold fields as a deserter from the Confederate militia, moved farther west to California to avoid being jailed for feuding, took up his pseudonym to stay a step ahead of anyone looking for Samuel Clemens, especially creditors. Twain’s flaws were many in his own day. Problematic in our own time is a casual racism that faded as he grew older (charting that “evolution in matters of racial tolerance” is one of the great strengths of Chernow’s book). Harder to explain away is Twain’s well-known but discomfiting attraction to adolescent and even preadolescent girls, recruiting “angel-fish” to keep him company and angrily declaring when asked, “It isn’t the public’s affair.” While Twain emerges from Chernow’s pages as the masterful—if sometimes wrathful and vengeful—writer that he is now widely recognized to be, he had other complexities, among them a certain gullibility as a businessman that kept that much-feared poverty often close to his door, as well as an overarchingly gloomy view of the human condition that seemed incongruous with his reputation, then and now, as a humanist.
Essential reading for any Twain buff and student of American literature.Pub Date: May 13, 2025
ISBN: 9780525561729
Page Count: 1200
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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