Women's History Book Reviews

©1996-2008 womeninworldhistory.com

Marie Antoinette: The Last Queen of France
Evelyne Lever, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, © 2000.

This is a wonderful way to view the events leading to the French Revolution through the eyes of one of its most famous victims. The well written book is full of details about court etiquette, scandals and plots. Of note is its insight into the behavior of the haughty but often unfairly criticized queen whose greatest crime seems to be "her ignorance of the century's great philosophical movements and her complete lack of insight into the aspirations of the majority of the French people at a time of both economic and political crisis."