Yale University Press
Marie-Antoinette: The Making of a French Queen
Key Metrics
- John Hardman
- Yale University Press
- Hardcover
- 9780300243086
- 9.3 X 6.1 X 1.6 inches
- 2.15 pounds
- Biography & Autobiography > Royalty
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
Presents [Marie-Antoinette] as much more than a symbol whose meaning is in the eye of her beholder . . . neither martyr nor voluptuary but rather a serious participant in politics.--Lynn Hunt, New York Review of Books
Splendid. . . . Masterly. . . . A wonderfully gripping biography.--Allan Massie, Wall Street Journal
Named a Book of the Year (2020) by The Spectator
Who was the real Marie-Antoinette? She was mistrusted and reviled in her own time, and today she is portrayed as a lightweight incapable of understanding the events that engulfed her. In this new account, John Hardman redresses the balance and sheds fresh light on Marie-Antoinette's story.
Hardman shows how Marie-Antoinette played a significant but misunderstood role in the crisis of the monarchy. Drawing on new sources, he describes how, from the outset, Marie-Antoinette refused to prioritize the aggressive foreign policy of her mother, Maria-Theresa, bravely took over the helm from Louis XVI after the collapse of his morale, and, when revolution broke out, listened to the Third Estate and worked closely with repentant radicals to give the constitutional monarchy a fighting chance. For the first time, Hardman demonstrates exactly what influence Marie-Antoinette had and when and how she exerted it.
Author Bio
John Hardman was Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Edinburgh from 1969-1983 and Senior Research Fellow at Sussex university from 2000-2004. He is the author of many books on eighteenth-century France and has appeared in several television programs, most recently the BBC 2 series on Versailles.
His most recent book The life of Louise XVI is the joint winner of the Franco-British Society Literary Prize for 2016.
Source: Andrew Lownie Literary Agency
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