Rating: 
Summary: Amusing but a little confusing...
Review: Royal Babylon is history lite at it's best - entertaining, witty, and frothy. It is basically one long gossip column and is very hard to put down; I read this straight through in just a few days. The author, Karl Shaw, takes us on a tour of royal antics and foibles spanning several centuries of Europe's monarchs and their families. We learn, for example, that Czar Paul had steel plates strapped to the knees of his soldiers in order to make them goosestep without bending their legs, and that the Duke of Cabaria, heir to the Spanish throne, liked to wear up to sixteen pairs of gloves at the same time.In Royal Babylon, Shaw covers the Bourbons, Romanovs, Hohenzollerns, Hanoverians, Windsors, Wittelsbachs, Saxe-Coburgs and Hapsburgs. Personally, I would have liked to have seen more time devoted to the Austrian Hapsburgs. From all accounts, they were as zany as the rest of the bunch, but little time is spent describing them apart from a select few. This would have been a 5 star read except that Shaw tends to jump around so much at times, that it can be a little difficult to follow. The first chapters are arranged thematically, the second part of the book is more geographical/by family. The same individuals are touched on in both parts of the book though, so I found myself going back several times, trying to figure out exactly how King A was related to Prince B and Queen C, etc. As a previous reviewer has already mentioned, I think an index would have been very helpful. Still, a great read overall!
Rating:
Summary: Amusing but a little confusing...
Review: Royal Babylon is history lite at it's best - entertaining, witty, and frothy. It is basically one long gossip column and is very hard to put down; I read this straight through in just a few days. The author, Karl Shaw, takes us on a tour of royal antics and foibles spanning several centuries of Europe's monarchs and their families. We learn, for example, that Czar Paul had steel plates strapped to the knees of his soldiers in order to make them goosestep without bending their legs, and that the Duke of Cabaria, heir to the Spanish throne, liked to wear up to sixteen pairs of gloves at the same time. In Royal Babylon, Shaw covers the Bourbons, Romanovs, Hohenzollerns, Hanoverians, Windsors, Wittelsbachs, Saxe-Coburgs and Hapsburgs. Personally, I would have liked to have seen more time devoted to the Austrian Hapsburgs. From all accounts, they were as zany as the rest of the bunch, but little time is spent describing them apart from a select few. This would have been a 5 star read except that Shaw tends to jump around so much at times, that it can be a little difficult to follow. The first chapters are arranged thematically, the second part of the book is more geographical/by family. The same individuals are touched on in both parts of the book though, so I found myself going back several times, trying to figure out exactly how King A was related to Prince B and Queen C, etc. As a previous reviewer has already mentioned, I think an index would have been very helpful. Still, a great read overall!
Rating: 
Summary: It had me from the crown on Victoria's head
Review: That is the one covering her eyes, so she couldn't see what her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren were doing.
This has to be one of the funniest books I've ever read, but I have to agree with the other posters-you have to keep careful track of who is who and how are they related to the other nuts, I mean monarchs.
Some are easy to remember-George III, easy to remember from the Madness of King George, but some of the others, I had to remind myself of who they were.
The stories in the book made me laugh outloud. Besides the constant stream of lovers, whiskey and food, Shaw revealing to the world that Edward VII used to weigh everyone who came to Balmoral put my mind at ease.
What also really strikes me, is the fact that Queen Elizabeth II is beloved as a Queen, and generally regarded as a fair and equal ruler, but yet is descended from the Hanover-Saxe-Coburg-Gotha nut farm. It was also funny to hear Shaw's explanation that Diana Spenser, who everyone said was "a commoner," came from a background just as royal as Charles's, but she was not a Windsor. Therefore a commoner. A "commoner" with a title and a rather large estate, not a washer woman. Shaw writes-"there are three types of people in the world-blacks, whites and royals." This certainly explains Diana's commoner status.
But I do have one disagreement with Shaw. On the back of the book, it says "Thank god you live in a democracy." The Bush family is distantly related to Diana, and probably some of those Stuart fruit loops, so I wouldn't be too sure about that.
Overall, if you want to laugh like never before and amuse your friends with all kinds of really obscure facts, buy this book.
Rating: 
Summary: More inbred nutters than you can shake a banjo at.
Review: The bumf on the back cover promises to amaze me with the antics of European Royalty over the last 2 or 3 centuries. And it did not lie. The tales of debauchery and terror that find their way onto these pages are really out of this world. Perhaps Royalty does have "Divine Right" because these people had something that the rest of us, fortunately, do not. The emphasis is on sex. All royals seem to love it, spending most of the rest of their time wondering which courtier should be next. On many occassions we have strikingly unattractive females being lusted after by Kings and Princes, or instances of a King performing with his latest while the unfortunate husband has to look on helpless. Then we have the many many instances of madness. It is not just King George that had marbles rolling around in his head. If they are not drunk, they are having sex. If they are not having sex, they are knighting trees or fighting with curtains. Nuttier than a chipmunk's cheek, the Royals of Europe provide many instances of laugh out loud lunacy. Karl Shaw has been given a veritable feast of information on which to write this book and he has done it well. Writing in a rather sparse tone, he hits the reader with tale after tale in rapid fire succession, never dwelling on any one particular story for long. The problem with it, however, is the fact that so many of the Royals featured did much the same as another Royal in a different country in a different century. Shaw rightly alludes to the blatant and dangerous inbreeding, but comes up with a situatuation where it seems as though the reader has already been there. I struggled with this, because the novelty of some of the antics wore off during the 200 odd pages. The book finds itself somewhere between novel and work of reference, but does not work as either. I frequently found myself wishing there was an index at the back. Both so that I could get a better idea of which Royal interlinks with which, and because I know in future that I am going to hear of something a Royal did, and I am going to want to see if its in this book. Overall an excess of material, but I cannot gripe at a book that gives me so many amusing anecdotes and truly laugh oud loud funnies.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but hardly side-splitting
Review: This account of European royalty between the 17th-20th centuries has some interesting stories about the eccentric and often deplorable behaviour of the members of various royal families. There is an emphasis on sexual misbehaviour, and Mr. Shaw's own prejudices show up quite clearly. He obviously has a strong distaste for the idea of women having sex past a certain age, Catherine the Great comes in for particular censor for being still interested in sex while in her sixties (ugh!)He refers sneeringly to George I's mother as a "flabby, toothless crone"She was a very old lady at the time, but that's no excuse, evidently, for being flabby and toothless. I suppose Mr Shaw thinks she should have been working out at the gym, or something. Camilla Parker-Bowles is refered to dissaprovingly as 'Prince Charles's forty-five year old mistress' (one feels Mr Shaw would dissaprove of her less had she been in her twenties).Mr Shaw seems to feel that hereditary power, combined with in-breeding, is the cause of the bad behaviour of monarchs, though as a previous reviewer pointed out, that hardly explains the deplorable behaviour of such non-hereditary monarchs as Napoleon, Hiter, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao etc. An intersting book if you don't mind the constant dwelling on (sometimes wildly exaggerated) disgusting details. The blurb on the back of the book describes this volume as 'side-splitting' but it is hardly that. Midly amusing perhaps. If you want a side-splitting history book, try 'The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody' by Will Cuppy.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but hardly side-splitting
Review: This account of European royalty between the 17th-20th centuries has some interesting stories about the eccentric and often deplorable behaviour of the members of various royal families. There is an emphasis on sexual misbehaviour, and Mr. Shaw's own prejudices show up quite clearly. He obviously has a strong distaste for the idea of women having sex past a certain age, Catherine the Great comes in for particular censor for being still interested in sex while in her sixties (ugh!)He refers sneeringly to George I's mother as a "flabby, toothless crone"She was a very old lady at the time, but that's no excuse, evidently, for being flabby and toothless. I suppose Mr Shaw thinks she should have been working out at the gym, or something. Camilla Parker-Bowles is refered to dissaprovingly as 'Prince Charles's forty-five year old mistress' (one feels Mr Shaw would dissaprove of her less had she been in her twenties).Mr Shaw seems to feel that hereditary power, combined with in-breeding, is the cause of the bad behaviour of monarchs, though as a previous reviewer pointed out, that hardly explains the deplorable behaviour of such non-hereditary monarchs as Napoleon, Hiter, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao etc. An intersting book if you don't mind the constant dwelling on (sometimes wildly exaggerated) disgusting details. The blurb on the back of the book describes this volume as 'side-splitting' but it is hardly that. Midly amusing perhaps. If you want a side-splitting history book, try 'The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody' by Will Cuppy.
Rating:
Summary: Terrific ammo for pro-republicans in Britain
Review: This author seems to specialize in books about the tasteless, gross, and unspeakable -- his own words -- but he seems to have done his research on the dubious mental health, psychopathic behavior, and unbridled sexual antics of most of the royal families of Europe over the past three centuries. It was noted by many contemporary observers, in fact, that in 1801 virtually every hereditary monarch was demonstrably insane. The Bourbons, Hanoverians, Habsburgs, Braganzas, Romanovs, Wittenbergs, Wittelsbachs, and Hohenzollerns all were monstrously inbred, the result of negative eugenics as a matter of state policy. Extreme ugliness, dwarfishness, and physical deformities which were rare in the general public were common enough in the palaces of Europe. And even a relatively healthy newcomer like Napoleon III Bonaparte took full advantage of the royal prerogative to frolic among his horde of mistresses unhindered. Moreover, the full public schedule of even a young royal generally meant that no prince or princess received much of an education and many were barely able to sign their names. Nor is 20th century Britain immune to these personal and dynastic shortcomings. In 1941, five members of the Bowes-Lyon family, including two of Queen Elizabeth's nieces, were confined to a mental hospital in Surrey on the same day; Buckingham Palace later lied to _Burke's Peerage_ about their existence, ignoring the fact that several of them were still alive in an NHS ward in the mid-1980s. This semi-tabloid volume would have been improved by footnotes and an index. Nevertheless, the genealogist who discovers a link to royalty among his ancestors might think twice before publicizing the fact.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: This book has a lot of little factual errors, that should have been caught by a good editor or fact checker. The writing is only fair-to-poor. Nothing new or interesting here, despite the "babylon" promised in the title.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: This book has a lot of little factual errors, that should have been caught by a good editor or fact checker. The writing is only fair-to-poor. Nothing new or interesting here, despite the "babylon" promised in the title.
Rating:
Summary: The best royal gossip book I've read
Review: This book is chock full of interesting and strange stories about European royalty. I've read alot of books on this subject and this is far and away the most interesting. It seems carefully researched for the most part(you can't gossip and get it all right) but far more importantly, it was really entertaining and easy to follow, not an easy task when describing his particular subject. Enjoy.
|
