Queen Victoria

ISBN-13: 9780333638071 / Angielski / Miękka / 2005 / 254 str.

Walter L. Arnstein

Opis

Dead for little more than one hundred years, Queen Victoria has already been the subject of more biographies than any other woman born since 1800. This newest biography from a well known historian is justified and distinguished by the incorporation of recent research on often-neglected aspects of her life and reign, as well as its relative brevity. Including much of Victoria's own writings from journals and letters, Arnstein takes a thorough look at her personal life and religious views, but also investigates her public role such as her involvement with Britain's army, her political initiatives and her connections with Ireland. The author's solid understanding of Victorian society and its relationship to the queen gives this book a solidarity missing in other biographies of the queen. The book provides enough economic, social, cultural and political background knowledge to make this book accessible even to readers unfamiliar with her now distant world.

Spis treści

List of Illustrations.- Acknowledgements.- Preface.- Introduction.- The Cloistered Princess.- The Royal Teenager.- The Model of Domesticity.- The Reigning Partner.- Britain's Champion.- The Reclusive Widow.- The Guardian of the Constitution.- The Imperial Matriarch.- The Paradoxical Monarch.- Appendices.- Select Bibliography.- Index.

O autorze

WALTER L. ARNSTEIN is Professor Emeritus of History and Jubilee Professor Emeritus of the Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Blurb

In this engaging study, Walter L. Arnstein explores both the private life and the public role of the young princess who inherited Britain's throne as a teenager and who became the octogenarian symbolic head of the largest empire in the history of the world.

Arnstein incorporates the findings of past studies and recent research (including articles of his own based on previously unpublished letters and journals) to shed light on often-neglected aspects of Victoria's life and reign: her concern with gender roles, religion, politics, and Ireland; as well as her involvement with both the controversial domestic issues and the great international conflicts of the era. Wherever the historical evidence allows, Arnstein enables the monarch to speak in her own words, demonstrating that Victoria was not only the queen who became an adjective, but also a highly-quotable, multi-dimensional human being.

Concise, authoritative and attractively illustrated, Queen Victoria provides the economic, social, cultural and political background knowledge to make the life of this fascinating monarch intelligible even to readers unfamiliar with her now distant world.