The Last Courts of Europe: A Royal Family Album, 1860-1914

This oversized book is filled with beautiful sepia-toned photographs of European royal houses in the decades prior to the first world war. Most of the dynasties photographed here were "discontinued" in the post-war clamor for self-government. The ones that remained were stripped of any significant power. The introductory text by Robert Massie is quite lengthy and gives a detailed description of the following houses during the last decades of their regencies: The Saxe-Colburg-Windsors, The Hohenzollerns, The Romanovs and The Hapsburgs. The bulk of the book, as the title suggests, are photographs accompanied by text and the monarchs of the following countries are represented in this section: Great Britain, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Prussia, The Lesser German States, Belgium, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, France, Scandinavbia, Iberia, Italy and The Balkans. As many of these dynasties were intermarried, the genealogical table at the end of the book is very helpful. The book provides a fascinating glimpse of 19th century European royal houses during the second half of the 19th century before they were lost to the tumultuous changes of the 20th.