Four Queens: The Provençal Sisters Who Ruled Europe by Nancy GoldstoneMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was alternately a confusion of similar names and extremely entertaining reading. I probably am not well versed enough in the history of this era to know much of what is going on. Having said that, the author did do a good job at differentiating all the various royal people with extremely repetitive names.
Upon reading about Louis IX's crusade, I was immediately reminded of its account in Foucault's Pendulum, by Umberto Eco. If anything, the entire story, as told here, is even more comical. The entire endeavor (and its sequel) were blunder after blunder. I mean, they were complete tragedies at the time for the people involved, but hopefully enough time has passed by now. As the author stated: "The most virulent enemy of France could not have done a better job of decimating the French royal family than did Louis with his crusade".
As for the queens, considering the men they were stuck with, they were pretty much the ones running the show and/or cleaning up the messes. In some ways it reminded me of The Soong sisters (from the book The Soong Dynasty).
All in all, a very interesting, if at times confusing, book about an interesting time.
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