Average Rating:

.

The Duchess

by: Amanda Foreman

August 04, 2008
The book is simply amazing. The letters that the Duchess exchanged with others bring her character and her peers back to life. Despite the high rank and society Georgiana belonged to, she was just a woman whose ambitions moved her forward, whose love-life could not be more difficult and restrained her from being loved in return. The film adaptation is a far cry from the books original text.

Average Rating:

.

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire

by: Amanda Foreman

June 07, 1999
Although 'Georgiana' is competently written and well-researched, I am frankly amazed that it has achieved such massive success and popularity since its first publication ten years ago. As other reviewers have pointed out, it perhaps fulfills a useful purpose in putting women back in the 'front-line' of the eighteenth-century political scene but, speaking for myself, I found the exhaustive discussion of the ups-and-downs of the Whigs and Tories tedious in the extreme and an almost total turn-off. This was doubly disappointing, since the rave reviews had led me to expect so much more.

Strangely enough, the most engaging part of the book was the introduction, in which the author writes with real verve and enthusiasm of how she was first ... Read More:

Average Rating:

.

The Duchess

by: Amanda Foreman

August 04, 2008
The book is simply amazing. The letters that the Duchess exchanged with others bring her character and her peers back to life. Despite the high rank and society Georgiana belonged to, she was just a woman whose ambitions moved her forward, whose love-life could not be more difficult and restrained her from being loved in return. The film adaptation is a far cry from the books original text.

Average Rating:

.

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire

by: Amanda Foreman

May 18, 1998
Although 'Georgiana' is competently written and well-researched, I am frankly amazed that it has achieved such massive success and popularity since its first publication ten years ago. As other reviewers have pointed out, it perhaps fulfills a useful purpose in putting women back in the 'front-line' of the eighteenth-century political scene but, speaking for myself, I found the exhaustive discussion of the ups-and-downs of the Whigs and Tories tedious in the extreme and an almost total turn-off. This was doubly disappointing, since the rave reviews had led me to expect so much more.

Strangely enough, the most engaging part of the book was the introduction, in which the author writes with real verve and enthusiasm of how she was first 'introduced' ... Read More:

Average Rating:

.

Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction (Making History)

by: Martin Gilbert

March 20, 2006
On November 7 1938, a 17 year old German Jew, Herschel Grynszpan, enraged by the suffering of his parents, who had been expelled from Germany together with 12 000 other Jews, walked into the German embassy in Paris and shot junior German diplomat Ernst vom Rath, who died three days later.
Vom Rath's assassination sparked what the Nazis had been planning for months, a nationwide pogrom and orgy of destruction against the Jews, across the Third Reich (Germany, Austria and Sudetenland).
On on November 8 it had been announced that Jewish children could no longer attend "Aryan" state elementary schools, something that had hitherto been allowed where there were not sufficient Jewish elementary schools. At the same time all Jewish cultural activities were suspended ... Read More:

Average Rating:

.

Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Gamble (Making History)

by: Andrew Roberts

February 07, 2005
This book is excellent for its concise approach to a comples subject.

I like his new explanation for the start of the French Cavalry charges commencing but also for his sympathetic understanding of Marshall Ney's predicament at Quatre Bras when he pinpoints battle fatigue as a lokely explanation of Ney's behaviour. It fits in well with Ney's prodigious feats on the retreat from Moscow and his subsequent campaigns in 1813.

However like all historians he does not understand Marshall Grouchy's predicament when he was specifically ordered by Napoleon to got to Wavre. You have only to look at the treatment meted out by Napoleon to those Marshalls who displeased him such as Junot to appreciate what he might have done to those who disobeyed his orders. Direct disobedience ... Read More:

Average Rating:

.

George IV: The Rebel Who Would Be King

by: Christopher Hibbert

June 12, 2007
This book is excellent for its concise approach to a comples subject.

I like his new explanation for the start of the French Cavalry charges commencing but also for his sympathetic understanding of Marshall Ney's predicament at Quatre Bras when he pinpoints battle fatigue as a lokely explanation of Ney's behaviour. It fits in well with Ney's prodigious feats on the retreat from Moscow and his subsequent campaigns in 1813.

However like all historians he does not understand Marshall Grouchy's predicament when he was specifically ordered by Napoleon to got to Wavre. You have only to look at the treatment meted out by Napoleon to those Marshalls who displeased him such as Junot to appreciate what he might have done to those who disobeyed his orders. Direct disobedience ... Read More:

Average Rating:

.

Madame de Pompadour (New York Review Books Classics)

by: Nancy Mitford

2001-03
This book is excellent for its concise approach to a comples subject.

I like his new explanation for the start of the French Cavalry charges commencing but also for his sympathetic understanding of Marshall Ney's predicament at Quatre Bras when he pinpoints battle fatigue as a lokely explanation of Ney's behaviour. It fits in well with Ney's prodigious feats on the retreat from Moscow and his subsequent campaigns in 1813.

However like all historians he does not understand Marshall Grouchy's predicament when he was specifically ordered by Napoleon to got to Wavre. You have only to look at the treatment meted out by Napoleon to those Marshalls who displeased him such as Junot to appreciate what he might have done to those who disobeyed his orders. Direct disobedience ... Read More:

Average Rating:

.

Georgiana's World

by: Amanda Foreman

October 01, 2001
This book is excellent for its concise approach to a comples subject.

I like his new explanation for the start of the French Cavalry charges commencing but also for his sympathetic understanding of Marshall Ney's predicament at Quatre Bras when he pinpoints battle fatigue as a lokely explanation of Ney's behaviour. It fits in well with Ney's prodigious feats on the retreat from Moscow and his subsequent campaigns in 1813.

However like all historians he does not understand Marshall Grouchy's predicament when he was specifically ordered by Napoleon to got to Wavre. You have only to look at the treatment meted out by Napoleon to those Marshalls who displeased him such as Junot to appreciate what he might have done to those who disobeyed his orders. Direct disobedience ... Read More:

Average Rating:

.

Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire

by: Amanda Foreman

2000-01
Although 'Georgiana' is competently written and well-researched, I am frankly amazed that it has achieved such massive success and popularity since its first publication ten years ago. As other reviewers have pointed out, it perhaps fulfills a useful purpose in putting women back in the 'front-line' of the eighteenth-century political scene but, speaking for myself, I found the exhaustive discussion of the ups-and-downs of the Whigs and Tories tedious in the extreme and an almost total turn-off. This was doubly disappointing, since the rave reviews had led me to expect so much more.

Strangely enough, the most engaging part of the book was the introduction, in which the author writes with real verve and enthusiasm of how she was first 'introduced' to the duchess and how her sympathy ... Read More: