MarieAntoinette, John Hardman
MarieAntoinette, John Hardman
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Marie-Antoinette
The Making of a French Queen

Author: John Hardman

Narrator: Jonathan Cowley

Unabridged: 17 hr 47 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 10/29/2019


Synopsis

A new look which fundamentally overturns our understanding of this famously "out of touch" queen

Who was the real Marie-Antoinette? She was mistrusted and reviled in her own time, and today she is portrayed as a lightweight incapable of understanding the events that engulfed her. In this new account, John Hardman redresses the balance and sheds fresh light on Marie-Antoinette's story.

Hardman shows how Marie-Antoinette played a significant but misunderstood role in the crisis of the monarchy. Drawing on new sources, he describes how, from the outset, Marie-Antoinette refused to prioritize the aggressive foreign policy of her mother, Maria-Theresa, bravely took over the helm from Louis XVI after the collapse of his morale, and, when revolution broke out, listened to the Third Estate and worked closely with repentant radicals to give the constitutional monarchy a fighting chance. For the first time, Hardman demonstrates exactly what influence Marie-Antoinette had and when and how she exerted it.

About John Hardman

John Hardman is one of the world's leading experts on the French Revolution and the author of several well-regarded books on the subject. He was formerly a lecturer in modern history at the University of Edinburgh.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Lois

This was dry but extraordinarily well researched and offered in a completely different view of this Queen from other biographers. This rushes through her life at quite a speed and begins to slow down around the The Affair of the Necklace. The author is a 'royalist' and I don't at all agree that these......more

Goodreads review by Simon

This is the first biography of her that manages to handle both the featherhead she was for most of her life, and the woman Marie Antoinette became because of the crisis of 1787-88, and the Revolution from 1789 until 1792 and the September Massacres, when her ability to influence the course of events......more

Goodreads review by Moniek

On the morning of 2 November 1755, Empress Maria Theresa gave birth to her 15th child, a daughter named Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna - and she would go down in history as the French Queen Marie Antoinette. In 1770, she married the future King Louis XVI, and they would go on to have four children to......more

Goodreads review by Zosi

3.5 stars. An interesting account of Marie Antoinette’s political involvements but the title is a bit misleading as this is not a biography as such. Much of her life before becoming queen is glossed over. As other reviewers have said she often gets lost among the more heavily political narrative of......more