Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #210690 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-06
• Format: Audiobook
• Binding: Audio CD
• 3 pages

Synopsis
What does it mean to be royal? At a time when the monarch no longer rules by divine right and governing powers fall to our elected leaders, the concept of royalty grows ever more elusive. The intellectual argument for the abolition of the monarchy is strong, and yet public interest in the royals continues to grow. Jeremy Paxman seeks to find out how the role of our head of state has changed over the years and what the implications have been. With characteristic intelligence and humour, he looks at every aspect of the monarchy and how it has related to politics, religion, the military and the law. With a mixture of popular history, direct reportage and hilarious anecdote, the master of investigative journalism seeks to find out just how important the Royal Family is to our national identity.

Customer Reviews

On Royalty, On the Spot
I am interested in history and also royalty and I thought this would be an interesting book which would not bore like some scholarly texts! I was happily pleased.

This book concentrates not just issues with Royalty in our own Royal Family, but also those of nations further afield. It is not afraid to talk about the issues connected with them as well - taxes and their role with God. In fact Republicanism is discussed. It made me think, would our country be the same without a Royal Family as recognisable figureheads, what do they bring to the nation?

There are some interesting points made throughout the book, along with a number of tales of strange ways and habits of current and former royalty. It concentrates on major events through history, the Abdication Crisis of 1936 (changed my view on Edward VIII), the execution of Charles I as well as King Zog! It also successfully tackled the issue Of Diana, Princess of Wales impact on the Royal Family (both before and after her death) it could have consumed a great part of the book, but was spattered throughout and never took up more than half a page.

This is a good book, if you fancy a bit of history and royalty is fascinating, their mystery remains the interest in my opinion and doesn't come across as scholarly and certainly not a chore to read.

A very good book
On Royalty by Jeremy Paxman is a very good book written in a very entertaining style. It is full of humour and anecdotes but perhaps because I am a republican some of the conclusions left me a little depressed.

Royalty: what is it good for?
Jeremy Paxman reads this abridged audiobook version of his book, On Royalty (4 CDs, running time just over 4 hours). I've never been much interested in royalty but always enjoy Newsnight when Mr Paxman presents it - although, I often wonder if his prey (the interviewee) might say something worth hearing if they were ever allowed to complete a sentence. It's a bit like a sort of vegetarian blood sport. It comes as no surprise to me that he's written an interesting book on this subject that had not previously held my attention with any but the weakest grip, or that he reads it in such a way that I feel entertained as well as informed. Royalty in general is examined, with our own royal family getting a particularly hard and searching scrutiny. It's a funny old set-up and much of the mystery (such as might perplex the ordinary British tax-payer for example) is cleared up in these chapters. Light is shed on those perennial questions: why do we put up with them? and why do they put up with us? I must say that I have a much more sympathetic view of them after listening to this - especially that poor so an so, Charles. Even though it seems a pretty rum sort of "firm" and I still believe it could use some hard pruning back, taking out all the messy, useless, trailing edges, I wouldn't be keen to get rid of the core members of our royal family. No more attractive system suggests itself. There definitely seem to be a number of far worse alternatives. I feel ever so slightly converted after listening to this excellent audiobook.