Biography & Autobiography : Royalty

The death of Diana Princess of Wales, on 31 August 1997, prompted public demonstrations of grief on an almost unprecedented scale. Global media coverage of the events following Diana's death appeared to create an international 'community of mourning'. However, such scenes of 'mass grief' were shadowed by political resistances and social tensions. The mourning - and not mourning - of Diana seemed to cross and yet reconfirm social divisions, to shift and at the same time redraw political boundaries. more...

Price: $26.95

Nur Jahan was one of the most powerful and influential women in Indian history. Born on a caravan traveling from Teheran to India, she became the last (eighteenth) wife of the Mughal emperor Jahangir and effectively took control of the government as he bowed to the effects of alcohol and opium. Her reign (1611-1627) marked the highpoint of the Mughal empire, in the course of which she made great contributions to the arts, religion, and the nascent trade with Europe. An intriguing, elegantly written account of Nur Jahan's life and times, this book not only revises the legends that portray her as a power-hungry and malicious woman, but also investigates the paths to power available to women in Islam and Hinduism providing a fascinating picture of life inside the mahal (harem).  more...

Price: $125.00

In the ten years since Princess Diana’s shocking and tragic death in 1997, her hold on the world’s imagination has only increased. For The People’s Princess , Larry King asked many people who knew Diana, some officially and some more personally, for their favorite memories. more...

Price: $19.95

Dubbed the ''pirate queen'' by the Vatican and Spain's Philip II, Elizabeth I was feared and admired by her enemies. Extravagant, whimsical, and hot-tempered, Elizabeth was the epitome of power. Her visionary accomplishments were made possible by her daring merchants, gifted rapscallion adventurers, astronomer philosophers, and her stalwart Privy Council, including Sir William Cecil, Sir Francis Walsingham, and Sir Nicholas Bacon. All these men contributed their vast genius, power, greed, and expertise to the advancement of England. In The Pirate Queen , historian Susan Ronald offers a fresh look at Elizabeth I, focusing on her uncanny instinct for financial survival and the superior intellect that propelled and sustained her rise. The foundation of Elizabeth's empire was built on a carefully choreographed strategy whereby piracy transformed England from an impoverished state on the fringes of Europe into the first building block of an empire that covered two-fifths of the world. Based on a wealth of historical sources and thousands of personal letters between Elizabeth and her merchant adventurers, advisers, and royal ''cousins,'' The Pirate Queen tells the thrilling story of Elizabeth and the swashbuckling mariners who terrorized the seas, planted the seedlings of an empire, and amassed great wealth for themselves and the Crown. more...

Price: $12.99

The tragic story of Japan’s Crown Princess. It’s the fantasy of many young women—marry a handsome prince, move into a luxurious palace, and live happily ever after. But that’s not how it turned out for Masako Owada. A thoroughly modern woman in collision with an ancient system, Masako is the brilliant Harvard- and Oxford-educated woman who, in 1993, sacrificed her career as a diplomat to marry Crown Prince Naruhito. Stealing a fascinating look behind the “Chrysanthemum Curtain” into the arcane world of the Japanese royal family, Princess Masako details how the princess is subjected to the endless superstitious rites of the Royal Household Agency in the hope that she will produce a male heir and prevent the world’s oldest royal dynasty from dying out. Some thought the princess would be a breath of fresh air in the musty corridors of this twenty-six-hundred-year-old monarchy, but thirteen years later, now at age forty-two, the princess is a tragic figure whose struggles with depression have made international headlines. Ben Hills’s fascinating portrait of Masako and the Chrysanthemum Throne draws on research in Tokyo and rural Japan, Oxford, and Harvard and from more than sixty interviews with Japanese, American, English, and Australian sources—Masako’s and Naruhito’s friends, teachers, and former colleagues—many of whom have never spoken publicly before, shedding light on the royal family’s darkest secrets, secrets that can never be openly discussed in Japan because of the reverence in which the Emperor and his family are held. And it poses some questions that few in Japan would dare to ask—questions about the role of the emperor, the place of women, attitudes toward mental health and IVF, and the power of the bureaucracy. But most of all, this is a story about a love affair that went tragically wrong. more...

Price: $14.95