"World Royal Families" is excellent as a
coffee table book, since it has a lot of large colour photos of kings, queens
and other royalty from all around the world. Some royal palaces are showed as
well.
However, the text is very brief and definitely not "detailed research", as claimed by the promotion material. You can probably learn more about these monarchs from Wikipedia! According to another reviewer, Neville, the book also contains factual errors.
Curiously, various pretenders to thrones long abolished have been included, while others are not mentioned at all. Both the Vatican and Andorra are featured, although their status as "monarchies" is somewhat flimsy. Who is monarch of Andorra? The bishop of Urgel?
Overall, the European royalty look more laid back than the Asian and African kings with their stiff and formal poses. Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles and other members of the British royal family show up in many of the photos from far-away nations, presumably because the book was produced in Britain. The most entertaining photo shows Charles Napoleon and his children. They look like a regular middle-class family, complete with the impossible teens! Apparently, Charles is a republican, and the title Prince Napoleon has therefore been transferred to his teenage son, who looks like a nerd... Obviously, the Napoleons have little chance ever getting back to power in their native France.
I give the book four stars because of the photos. This is an excellent coffee table book, I admit that much. But otherwise, you should probably take the information in this volume with a certain grain of salt, and do your own research on the monarchs included.
Personally, I'm a republican. Like Charles Napoleon, apparently.
However, the text is very brief and definitely not "detailed research", as claimed by the promotion material. You can probably learn more about these monarchs from Wikipedia! According to another reviewer, Neville, the book also contains factual errors.
Curiously, various pretenders to thrones long abolished have been included, while others are not mentioned at all. Both the Vatican and Andorra are featured, although their status as "monarchies" is somewhat flimsy. Who is monarch of Andorra? The bishop of Urgel?
Overall, the European royalty look more laid back than the Asian and African kings with their stiff and formal poses. Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles and other members of the British royal family show up in many of the photos from far-away nations, presumably because the book was produced in Britain. The most entertaining photo shows Charles Napoleon and his children. They look like a regular middle-class family, complete with the impossible teens! Apparently, Charles is a republican, and the title Prince Napoleon has therefore been transferred to his teenage son, who looks like a nerd... Obviously, the Napoleons have little chance ever getting back to power in their native France.
I give the book four stars because of the photos. This is an excellent coffee table book, I admit that much. But otherwise, you should probably take the information in this volume with a certain grain of salt, and do your own research on the monarchs included.
Personally, I'm a republican. Like Charles Napoleon, apparently.
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