Philip V of Spain: The King Who Reigned Twice

Rating:
Summary: A Royal Manic Depressive
Review: As a history of the founding of the Boubon dynasty in Spain, I like this book. It's informative about the blood relationships of contenders for the crowns of Aragon and Castille a little more than a century after the Moors were defeated by Ferdinand and Isabella. The author describes the effect of Phillip's mental illness on political power, on family relationships, and on the formation of a centralized, Spanish administration. This is not a thriller of a book, but it teaches details one never hears about in school, for instance, about the role of marriages on treaties, territorial sovereignty and national identity, or about local versus centralized taxation to support royalty and nobility. It's a good thing that Phillip married strong, politically savvy and devoted women both times.

Rating:
Summary: REhabilitating a "sick" king
Review: Kamen makes a fruitless attempt to "rehabilitate" the first Bourbon king of Spain, known as Philip V.
No matter how he might try, the author offers very little that could convince a reader that this man contributed anything of value that would obliterate the sorry record of achievements of the very wealthy nation over which he ruled.
Kamen tries to generate sympathy for this man by appealing to current psychiatric babble -- claiming that he suffered from "bipolar disorder." One might generate sympathy for anyone who developed the disordered psychological system that Philip had developed, if he were to be regarded simply as a human being. How can a modern author ignore the tremendous suffering and disorder that resulted from a society being convinced that such a man should rule over a vast empire? The contents of this book does demonstrate the kind of folly into which masses of people can be led by being induced to uphold the kind of reality that allowed a man like Philip to act as a figurehead for a nation that controlled vast wealth and resources.
Kamen, however, conveniently gives little attention to the tremendous suffering of the general public which resulted from a system which allowed a man who worked from a most unusual psycholgical system to remain as a figurehead of power for a nation that controlled vast wealth. Instead, he tries to insert -- between the descriptions of Philip's blatantly unsual pychological functioning -- tidbits which are supposed to generate sympathy and to convince the reader that this man actually accomplished useful functions during his long tenure as king of Spain -- 1700-1746.
This book might have been useful as a clear cut example of how a nation's citizenry can be led to engage in extremely unproductive and, ultimately, dangerous activity if they are first convinced to accept a set of basic constructions -- "the divine right of kings," "the power of the market place," etc. This man served as the figurehead for a power structure that steered Europe -- and The Western Hemisphere -- through vastly significant events. Though a historian can hold to the premise that he/she should not engage in "what if" writing, he/she can -- I would claim -- point out how people of a particular era had been "trapped" in their constructions.

Rating:
Summary: Spain's First Bourbon
Review: Kamen's biography of Philip V, which is the first English-language biography on this troubled soul for a long time, is an attempt at rehabilitation. In Philip's case, rehabilitation has its limits - for instance, the fact that he attended FEWER auto-da-fe's than his Hapsburg predecessors is hardly exculpatory. On the other hand, Kamen shows that Philip was a diligent man who, from the moment he arrived from Paris (he was French-born and indeed a grandson of Louis XIV), took his constitutional and religious roles extremely seriously, and withstood armed insurrection by the Hapsburg pretender, Archduke (later Emperor) Charles. Kamen also refutes the standard caricature of Philip as "dominated by women" and "tormented by desire for his wife." (He was uxorious! So what?) As to Philip's supposed "feeble-mindedness" and "madness," Kamen has the benefit of modern psychiatry, and as he explains, Philip's extravagant mood swings and melancholia are classic symptoms of manic depression. Finally, the title: he ruled "twice" not because of his supposed "madness," but because he abdicated in favor of his first-born son Louis, who then died only months later, leaving Philip to re-take the reins of power. A scholarly and impressive study of Spanish court life in the early eighteenth century.

Rating:
Summary: Spain's First Bourbon
Review: Kamen's biography of Philip V, which is the first English-language biography on this troubled soul for a long time, is an attempt at rehabilitation. In Philip's case, rehabilitation has its limits - for instance, the fact that he attended FEWER auto-da-fe's than his Hapsburg predecessors is hardly exculpatory. On the other hand, Kamen shows that Philip was a diligent man who, from the moment he arrived from Paris (he was French-born and indeed a grandson of Louis XIV), took his constitutional and religious roles extremely seriously, and withstood armed insurrection by the Hapsburg pretender, Archduke (later Emperor) Charles. Kamen also refutes the standard caricature of Philip as "dominated by women" and "tormented by desire for his wife." (He was uxorious! So what?) As to Philip's supposed "feeble-mindedness" and "madness," Kamen has the benefit of modern psychiatry, and as he explains, Philip's extravagant mood swings and melancholia are classic symptoms of manic depression. Finally, the title: he ruled "twice" not because of his supposed "madness," but because he abdicated in favor of his first-born son Louis, who then died only months later, leaving Philip to re-take the reins of power. A scholarly and impressive study of Spanish court life in the early eighteenth century.

Rating:
Summary: A new biography for a neglected king
Review: Philip V is a king who is more often talked about than subjected to scholarly inquiry. His role in the war of Spanish Succession and his subsequent career on the throne and his second marriage have been the subject of numerous rumors and speculation. Henry Kamen's book rights a great wrong and restores Philip to the modern reader by subjecting his career and mental history to a modern sensibility. Philip's probable bi-polar disorder expalins a great deal about Philip's behavior Kamen's book is not only useful to the reader interested in Spain, but in 17th century European history in general.

Rating:
Summary: A new biography for a neglected king
Review: Philip V is a king who is more often talked about than subjected to scholarly inquiry. His role in the war of Spanish Succession and his subsequent career on the throne and his second marriage have been the subject of numerous rumors and speculation. Henry Kamen's book rights a great wrong and restores Philip to the modern reader by subjecting his career and mental history to a modern sensibility. Philip's probable bi-polar disorder expalins a great deal about Philip's behavior Kamen's book is not only useful to the reader interested in Spain, but in 17th century European history in general.

Rating:
Summary: Was the King Crazy?
Review: Was the King Crazy?

Mr. Kamen's book is not really a biography of the Spanish king. Rather, it is a diatribe against other historians who described Philip V as weak, mentally disturbed and a disaster for this country. The author does not see it that way.

Mr. Kamen explains that Philip suffered from manic depression and bipolar disorder. Could that be another expression for mentally unfit? While the king spent days and weeks in bed, screaming loud and messing up himself and his surroundings, the author claims that he was still of a composed mind and absolutely lucid. Philip's second wife, Elizabeth Farnese, took over the command of the kingdom, saying that she only acted on the instructions of her husband. Do we want to believe her? What we can believe is that, during Philip?s first marriage to Marie Louise of Savoy and even beyond, the affairs of Spain were run by the king's grandfather, King Louis XIV of France. Under Elizabeth Farnese, the French influence lessened and was supplanted by an Italian hegemony.

Given this very strong foreign influence, and the considerable power still exercised by the Spanish grandees, one could question whether or not it really mattered that much if Philip was always lucid or bipolar. Mr. Kamen may have lost the basis for his argument.