My Review for Amazon:
I am so confused - I finished this "biography" completely unsatisfied. Around page 150, I started to wonder when Crankshaw was going to actually start writing about Maria Theresa. This book is not a biography - it would more accurately be described as "The Times of Maria Theresa" because he spends more space on the wars, nobility, architecture, musicians and Joseph II than on Maria Theresa herself. I got the feeling that if it weren't for Joseph II and Marie Antoinette, he'd have written even less about Maria Theresa simply because there would have been no one to contrast her to (apparently with the exception of her eldest daughter, none of her other children were worth mentioning by name). Only two complete chapters (23 pages) are devoted to this woman; after this, it is not until the very last section of the book that what Maria Theresa accomplished during her reign comes to light (although there are plenty of hints).
Out of 19 pictures/illustrations included, only three are of Maria Theresa and there is one partial family portrait. The only births that are specifically mentioned are Joseph II's and Marie Antoinette's. He eventually gets around to mentioning that out of 16 children, 12 survived - but only after his lengthy tangents on events and people before Maria Theresa was born and up to 200 years after she died. In fact, her children aren't even mentioned with any type of consistency until page 249 - which seems really odd considering how much time she spent pregnant. Considering that she spent the majority of her life trying to make sure her children were raised properly, one would think that more pages would have been devoted to such matters.
This is the most disappointing biography I have ever read - and I've read quite a few. Had I known I'd be learning more about Austria before, during and after Maria Theresa's reign rather than about the woman behind the events, I would not have wasted my time reading this book. I have no clue how the other reviewers walked away from this "biography" happy with what they had learned about Maria Theresa - I feel that a lot was left out (although I don't know what because it wasn't included!). I wonder if Antonia Fraser is taking requests ...
I am so confused - I finished this "biography" completely unsatisfied. Around page 150, I started to wonder when Crankshaw was going to actually start writing about Maria Theresa. This book is not a biography - it would more accurately be described as "The Times of Maria Theresa" because he spends more space on the wars, nobility, architecture, musicians and Joseph II than on Maria Theresa herself. I got the feeling that if it weren't for Joseph II and Marie Antoinette, he'd have written even less about Maria Theresa simply because there would have been no one to contrast her to (apparently with the exception of her eldest daughter, none of her other children were worth mentioning by name). Only two complete chapters (23 pages) are devoted to this woman; after this, it is not until the very last section of the book that what Maria Theresa accomplished during her reign comes to light (although there are plenty of hints).
Out of 19 pictures/illustrations included, only three are of Maria Theresa and there is one partial family portrait. The only births that are specifically mentioned are Joseph II's and Marie Antoinette's. He eventually gets around to mentioning that out of 16 children, 12 survived - but only after his lengthy tangents on events and people before Maria Theresa was born and up to 200 years after she died. In fact, her children aren't even mentioned with any type of consistency until page 249 - which seems really odd considering how much time she spent pregnant. Considering that she spent the majority of her life trying to make sure her children were raised properly, one would think that more pages would have been devoted to such matters.
This is the most disappointing biography I have ever read - and I've read quite a few. Had I known I'd be learning more about Austria before, during and after Maria Theresa's reign rather than about the woman behind the events, I would not have wasted my time reading this book. I have no clue how the other reviewers walked away from this "biography" happy with what they had learned about Maria Theresa - I feel that a lot was left out (although I don't know what because it wasn't included!). I wonder if Antonia Fraser is taking requests ...
