Customer Reviews

Elizabeth I;: A biography

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I decided I wanted to read about great sovereigns of world history, so I made up a short list with a loose definition of 'sovereign': Alfred the Great, Alexander III of Macedon, Julius Caesar, Frederic II, etc..., and, of course, I had to include Queen Elizabeth I. Then I went to the library and was very surprised to find that Paul Johnson wrote a biography of Elizabeth I. I had read two or three other of his more famous books, and I found out this book on Elizabeth I has the same virtues Johnson's writing has in those other books - the swift 'readability' and insight and well-chosen anecdote; the common-sense and understanding of the ways of the world; as-well-as his understanding of the difference between freedom, life and light and tyranny, death and darkness; and also his understanding of which side is better. (It's not always obvious to many human beings, is it...?) And because Johnson treats the themes of Elizabeth's life in their universal light this book is very contemporary. You truly get a sense of her full life to the point where this reader was something approaching emotional at the end. Elizabethan England provides a very charismatic cast of surrounding characters as well. (I'm writing this review a year and a half beyond reading the book, and I'm not going to try to remember all the names beyond Drake and Raleigh and that unfortunate Earl of something... Mary, Queen of Scots as well. Lots of intrigue. Alot of detail. Much about 'affairs of state' and court machinations (he gets inside, in a very interesting way, the world of the royal court as well as the very real-life aspects of running the court and the country including the finances...) The 'real politik' and foreign policy is really as real and contemporary as human nature - which I believe is pretty much the same now as back then... There are many biographies of Elizabeth I in print, but those who know Paul Johnson can probably guess his book is a few notches higher than the pack. It should be back in print...