The Elizabeth Icon, 1603-2003

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Summary: A thinking person's approach to history
Review: An artful and insightful investigation into the phenomenon of the iconography of one of England's most co-opted historical figures. Meticulously researched and documented, Dr. Walker's study of the evolution of the Gloriana icon and the deliberate revisionism surrounding her role in the English consciousness from the moment of her death into current pop culture flips the traditional Elizabeth I scholarship on its head. *And there was much rejoicing*

One of the book's greatest strengths is the masterly interspersion of snatches of wry humor and dry wit throughout the formidable scholarly passages. The analysis is lively because the author succeeds so effortlessly at animating her argument with the kind of surprising cleverness that makes an academic text both entertaining and credible.

`The Elizabeth Icon' revisits an oft-studied era in English history with a different perspective and reveals important facets previously disregarded as insignificant or overlooked as immaterial. It goes on to offer new insight into why and how successors, politicians, and citizens conceptualize public figures and national identity.

This kind of study is particularly interesting in an America where the current administration is often accused of distorting

Rating:
Summary: So why do WE care about a dead royal?
Review: The trouble with this book is that it never seems to wonder why any modern Americans would get so excited about this long-dead English queen. Didn't we have a revolution to get rid of all this royal stuff? OK, Elizabeth I was a woman, so touchy-feely types in Women's Studies might consider her fair game, but this study really needs to think harder about why it cares so much about her, given that this book was written in the US. It's written as if we were the same as the British -- American writings about Elizabeth and British ones are all mixed up together, as if they meant the same things -- and we just aren't, not any more, surely? I care a lot about which Old World fantasies we cling to, and why, but this book didn't help me think more clearly about it, and that's a disappointment.

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Summary: Splendid Overview of Elizabeth I in the Popular Imagination
Review: This is a wonderfully written and fascinating book about Elizabeth I's iconic appearance in the popular imagination. It surveys everything from high art portraiture to twentieth-century teapots, and reveals a great deal about how English-speaking culture manipulates its reception of a powerful woman. Good scholarship, and good general reading.

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Summary: A year too late!
Review: This is kinda fun, the material it covers, but nothing like so cool as ENGLAND'S ELIZABETH by Dobson and Watson (Oxford, 2002). Kinda sad, too, as it was clearly written for the 400th anniversary of Elizabeth's death last year but didn't make it. It just isn't well enough written, compared to the competition.