Mad Kings & Queens: History's Most Famous Raving Royals

Being the history lover that I am I jumped at getting this book and read in about three days. Something about bringing those big royals down to a more personable level is appealing in a sense. The book is a collection of short snippets of different men and women of royalty and how some were inbred, some where TOO closely related and just plain crazy! The idea of some of these relationship is very disturbing especially in today's world, but the story behind the crazy antics that some of these royals got up to is what you find in Rob Zombie films.

This is a collection of forty mini-biographies of European royals who were insane or whose actions garnered them a reputation for insanity during their period in history. The book covers kings and queens who lived between the 14th and 19th centuries. Some of them would definitely be considered crazy and maniacal by today's standards (Erzsebet Bathory of Hungary bathed in the blood of young, virgin women in order to improve her complexion), but others were condemned by their peers for homosexuality or large libidos. There is only a short 2-3 page section on each royal, so the entries are by no means all-inclusive. But they give a brief overview of each person's life, along with the main actions or events that indicate their insanity. In many cases, explanations are also given for their poor mental health, such as being abused as a child, hereditary mental illness, generations of inbreeding, or key events that led to an emotional or mental breakdown. This is a very interesting book, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in European history. It serves a good overview of this topic, but if you'll have to read other books if you want to go more in depth. It would have also been nice if the authors had included some monarchs who weren't European. Were there really no rulers from other continents who would qualify? Still, it makes a nice addition to any collection of books on European history.