Experimental Blog #22

Comments on "In Triumph's Wake" - Royal Mothers, Tragic Daughters, and the Price They Paid for Glory by Julia P. Gelardi

This author is described as an "independent historian." Although there are some very noticable lapses in this, her second book, such as; she describes one of these women as something like, "her hair turned gray", and later on, "turned white", both times apparently over night; Julia Gelardi's books seem to be much praised. The author's writing also seems to be overly dramatic at times; skipping over long peroids of time and linking separate events because they support her basic ideas of these mother-daughter relationships.
However Gelardi's fundamental method relies heavily on quotations from the writing of the 6 women{and others} in these histories. There are over 1100 of these quotations, and 18 of them are from near 100 words to almost 300 words.
In this way Julia Gelardi writes very instructive, persuavive, and moving accounts of the histories of Queen Isabella I of Castile, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, and Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, 3 of Europe's most important and influential reigning monarchs, and also their much less successful and less happy daughters; Catherine of Aragon, Marie Antoinette of France, and Empress Frederick{also Victoria} of Germany.