the year in books [IV]

Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe is the story of four sisters of Raymond Berenger V of Provence. As the count of Provence had no male heirs, he sought to enlarge his family's status and security by marrying his daughters to the leading monarchs of thirteenth-century Europe. The four daughters - Marguerite, Eleanor, Sanchia, and Beatrice - were married off to the rulers of France, England, Germany, and Sicily. Nancy Goldstone's book is a riveting tale, but it bogs down with a lot of energy geared towards explaining the interconnected webs of relationships. It's understandable why she does it, of course; I guess I just prefer a more narrative flow in history books. 

The Tudors: The Complete Story of England's Most Notorious Dynasty is a tour-de-force through the Tudor kings. G.J. Meyer devotes most of the book (understandably) to Henry VIII's wives and the inadvertent English Reformation. The effects of that Reformation transformed England's culture forever and pitted Catholics against Protestants. English religion became a dominant factor affecting the country's politics and history. Henry VIII's successors would have to make sense of the religious uncertainty pervading the country. Meyer does an excellent job with the monarchs following Henry VIII: first his young son Edward VI, then his first-born daughter Mary (who would be known as 'Bloody Mary'), and then his younger daughter Elizabeth.

Game of Queens: The Women Who Made Sixteenth-Century Europe follows the lives of a number of women who played significant roles in Europe in the 1500s. Sarah Gristwood's treatment of Queen Elizabeth is one of the best I've read. Elizabeth's reign would see the flourishing of the English Renaissance and the decimation of the Spanish Armada. As she never married and produced no heir - hence her nickname 'The Virgin Queen' - her death brought an end to the Tudor Dynasty. The throne passed to the Scotland's Stuart kings, who had possessed Tudor blood in their veins since one of Henry VII's daughters, Margaret, had been married to the Scottish king. The Stuart kings would face a dilemma of epic proportions in the English Civil War.

Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World documents the spread of the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean. Roger Crowley covers the Ottoman capture of Rhodes and repulsion at Malta under Suleyman, the pirate activities along the North African coast, and the affairs of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire in the struggle for conquest of the seas. Crowley wraps up his book with a sweeping account of the naval Battle of Lepanto during the early reign of Selim the Sod in the 1570s. Lepanto was the apex of Ottoman expansion; it was all downhill from there.