- Paperback: 160 pages
- Publisher: Icon Books Ltd (3 Jun 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1840464011
- ISBN-13: 978-1840464016
- Product Dimensions: 17.6 x 11 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 444,973 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Christopher Hitchens
"Here is the plain proof of the child-sacrifice that underlies our most absurd and sinister institution."
Julie Burchill
"I love this book! It's like eating a whole box of chocolates in one go."
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An accomplished polemic,
By Tim Davison (Salford, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: God Save the Queen? (Paperback)
Let me start by saying that I'm a monarchist. So why did I buy this book? Well, it's extremely well-written for starters and is hugely accessible. Unlike most lefties, Hari does not cloud his beliefs in pretentious sociology-speak. And secondly, because as other reviewers have pointed out, it contains plenty of juicy gossip about the HRH's themselves. And after all, it's the monarchists who keep the royal family media frenzy going, isn't it?Hari's thesis - that the monarchy should be abolished because of its ill effects on the family and that the dysfunctional family is a result of the pressures of the monarchy - is well argued but far from watertight. After all, by Hari's argument, if the family were happy, then the monarchy would be OK. So what about foreign monarchies? Are we supposed to believe that every royal family in the world is dysfunctional? His book can be construed as much as an argument for reform and modernisation of the institution, rather than for its total abolition. Make the monarchy more family-friendly and flexible, perhaps, then the monarchs would be happier. In addition, he takes a very dim view of duty and seems to elevate the idea of personal freedom above all other virtues. Why should William, he argues, have to devote his life to duty? Shouldn't he be free to do as he pleases? And yet duty is an underrated virtue. Unfortunately, most of us find as we get older that we are all a great deal less free than we thought. Those with children lose much of their freedom and - if they have any conscience - accept their duty of bringing them up. Hari appears to think that it is wrong to expect anyone to accept a burden of duty and believes that William will not want to take up that burden. But what teenager doesn't want to rebel? By failing to cover the usual dry republican bases of democracy and constitutional issues and opting for a personality-focused argument, Hari makes this book an engaging and thought-provoking read. It will appeal to many, but does it ultimately convince?
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sharp, provocative and funny - a great read,
This review is from: God Save the Queen? (Paperback)
The largest section of the book is a person-by-person character assassination of the main actors in the soap opera that has been the post-War British monarchy. Hari pulls no punches in slamming the Windsors' weak intellect, greed, disfunctional family life, and unpleasantly poor social skills. Most of them come across as woefully inadequate and pretty loathesome human beings.
Hari's angle is to paint them as victims of an institution (in particular their misguided and heartless matriarch) that can't help but create flawed humans. He argues that for the British to insist on retaining a monarchy in the face of such evidence is to selfishly condemn a new generation of royals to this hideous fate. The second part of the book is a short but systematic deconstruction of the main arguments for retaining a monarchy on historical and constitutional grounds. This is a great read - lively, well sourced and engaging. Okay, reading the book eight years after it was authored, the idea that William doesn't want to be king doesn't sound so convincing, but little else appears to have changed. Yes, it's utterly one-sided, but it's still a welcome antidote to the far more prevalent and destructive powers of a sycophantic British media.
11 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book is soooo cool!,
By Steven Hicks (Stoke-on-Trent, England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: God Save the Queen? (Paperback)
I read this guy's stuff on ...[the New Statesman website]... (one of the UK's best politics sites) all the time and he's great there, but this book beats even that stuff! It's so witty and well-written, and obviously based on very close sources. There's stuff here for intellectuals and people who just love to hear dirt on the royals. I can't recommend it strongly enough!
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Biography > British Royalty
- Books > Biography > Historical > 1901 Onwards
- Books > Biography > Historical > Britain
- Books > Biography > Historical > Countries & Regions > Europe
- Books > Biography > Historical > Royalty
- Books > Biography > Political > Britain
- Books > Business, Finance & Law > Law
- Books > History > Britain & Ireland > British Heads of State
- Books > History > Britain & Ireland > Ireland
- Books > History > Britain & Ireland > Post-war Period, 1946-Present
- Books > History > Cultural History
- Books > History > Europe
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Government & Politics > Countries & Regions > Europe
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Government & Politics > Political Structure & Processes
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
