| For more than fifty years, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor -- who became Elizabeth II, Queen of England on February 6, 1952 -- has been loved and loathed, revered and feared, applauded and criticized by her people. Still she endures as a captivating figure in the world's most durable symbol of political authority: the British monarchy. In Monarch, a meticulously detailed portrait of Elizabeth II as both a human being and an institution, bestselling author Robert Lacey brings the queen to life as never before: as baby"e,Lilibet"e, learning to wave to a crowd in the Royal Mews, as a child"e,ardently praying for a brother"e, so as to avoid her fate, as a young woman falling in love with and marrying her cousin Philip, and as the mother-in-law of the most complicated royal of all, Princess Diana. Updated with new material to reflect the 2002 Golden Jubilee and the passing of the Queen Mum -- and featuring dozens of photographs, a family tree of the Hanoverian-Windsor-Mountbatte families, and a map that charts the location of royal castles -- Monarch is an engaging, critical, and celebratory account of Elizabeth's half-century reign that no reader of popular history should be without. |
