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Cardinal Richelieu: And the Making of France
by Anthony Levi
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Da Capo Press (2000-11-30)
ISBN: 078670778X
EAN: 9780786707782
Dewey Decimal #: 944.032092
Binding/Media: Hardcover - 256 pages
SKU: 080302007
Condition: Used: Good
Comments: This copy is in good condition. No visible markings, highlights, underlining, tears to text. Tight spine. Clean Hard Cover. Top, back/front Dust Jacket edge has a tiny chip, with a few scratches to front/back. Copy has very slight slant with minimum/moderate, shelf/edge wear. Apart from minor flaws, this is a very interesting copy, worth having at an affordable price. (L8-5)
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
From a leading expert in French studies, a fascinating new biography of the man who unified France and defined its cultural destiny. The story of Cardinal Richelieu casts a man of ruthless ambition in an extraordinary drama that sweeps across the map of seventeenth-century France. In compelling detail, it explores the intrigues and exposes the schemes that enabled Richelieu, a man whose steely intelligence matched his fierce determination, not only to fulfill his dreams of social prestige, personal wealth, and political power but also to realize his vision of a France unified as much by its culture as by its king. In 1585, the year of Richelieu's birth, France was defined only by its geography. Feudalism and religion divided loyalties, the populace shared no common language, from region to region customs varied enormously. By the time Richelieu died in 1642, however, the efforts of this eminent cardinal and consummate statesman had molded France into national and cultural unity. A favorite of Marie de Medici, Richelieu was made a cardinal in 1622 and two years later became the first minister of Louis XIII's council. In the next two decades, he oversaw the creation of the French Academy and a national theater, the establishment of the protectorship over the Sorbonne, the construction of magnificent public buildings, and the amassment of a priceless collection of art, all of which have continued for more than three centuries to attest to Richelieu's genius and to stand as this towering political figure's most enduring legacy.
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Customer Reviews
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Everyone else is right, I think ...
Rating  (2)
Date: 2008-11-23
1 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
Anthony Levi is trying to be fair to the Cardinal, whose reputation has endured hundreds of years of mudslinging. But Levi can't write well (perhaps English isn't his first language?) and nobody edited him well. I've read far worse, so I was eventually able to break through the poor sentence structure and dig out the meaning, but not everyone wants to do that. someone else mentioned that Levi has a hard time placing the Thirty Years War; I have to agree -- I wouldn't know when it was held based on Levi's writing alone. I borrowed it from a public library, and I'm glad -- I certainly wouldn't spend $77 on this book! It's just not worth it. If you can't find it in your local library, and you need it for some reason, get the paperback. You won't be reading this over and over and over for fun.
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Many facts, no pulse
Rating (2)
Date: 2005-06-14
2 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
This biography appears to be complete and well-researched but is buried by facts, names, dates, etc. without any sense of character or passion. The book, and the main character, have no pulse, making this an academic exercise in annotated timelines.
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a bit of everything brings a little something
Rating  (4)
Date: 2005-04-05
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
I agree with another reviewer that a lot of unnecessary wandering in the wilderness makes this book a tiring effort to enjoy, but some of the reviews seem to miss utterly the author's intense perspective which is nothing less than a fervent glance at Richelieu unscourged. Levi's historical take is often speculative, or is it? Perhaps it's more an unsolicited testament of things from the vantage point of those whom many historians have decided, in their churning quest to install an egalitarian privilege, are easily brushed aside, their subject's particular paradigm having been in their view eclipsed.
Richelieu himself, master of detail, would likely find himself more readily in Levi's book than in most textbooks and any number of insufficient biographies. You'll need a comprehensive understanding of the royal houses of Europe and the intricate volleying and snuggling between them to make sense of quite a bit of this book. Nor will you find a wholesale dismissal of the Roman Church's temporal politics here, and rightly so. This, after all, is history, not a fairyland for the democracy besotted. Even an Irish Times review on the back of the book can't help referring to "an allegedly devout mystery..." I suspect there are already too many allegedly brave biographies whose principle recommendation is a tawdry bias.
Levi's book gives an unindicted account of the Cardinal and his world. I'm grateful for that, despite the book's onerous flaws - sometimes incoherent writing, an at times merciless academic posture, and some unnecessary repetition. Four solid stars, but then, I'm a stickler for the real thing.
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A good biography.....
Rating (4)
Date: 2004-02-11
5 out of 7 customers found this reveiw helpful
I found Anthony Levi's biography on Cardinal Richelieu to be quite readable and informative. The author definitely appears to know his subject well and the complex personality of Richelieu comes out with clarity and understanding. When you write a biography of man like Richelieu, background materials must be included to revealed the extraordinary period that he lived which made Richelieu, such an extraordinary historical personage. While deeply hated by his own people during his lifetime, it would be no discredit if he would be regarded as a national hero today since without Richelieu, there may not be a France as we know it.
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Poor history mixed with faux scholasticism
Rating  (1)
Date: 2003-08-08
16 out of 18 customers found this reveiw helpful
Levi divides this book into two parts. The first half is history in the "in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue" style that went out years ago. It is a numbing recital of: "in 16xx ABC did this; in 16xx DEF did that; and in 16xx so did GHI". This half of the book is poorly organized. Often Levi is forced to double back 10 to 20 pages in order to pick up something he forgot. Unless you have a good grasp of 17th century France and its history, you will find the wild cascade of unrelated names and places disorienting. Don't waste your time trying to follow the history. Much of it is factually debatable. Levi never even quite seems to figure out when the 30 Years War took place.
In part two Levi takes up the cultural side. This half of the book abandons the "in 1492" approach for some of the worst academic English you are ever going to meet. The man simply cannot construct a pointed English sentence. I quit counting the number of consecutive 50 to 70 WORD sentences. Subjects and verbs seldom seem to meet, much less agree. Only experts at diagramming sentences need apply.
Levi is clearly not in his home area. Bluntly, anyone who can dismiss Corneille, Pascal, and Descartes is simply not well grounded in this period and its follow up. The lengthy discussion of Jansenism puts Levi into a subject area he clearly does not understand. About all you can say he got right for certain is that Richelieu and the Jansenists were not on good terms.
This book is a quandary. In many respects it is a hagiographic gloss of Richelieu. As a piece of popular history it is barely skin deep. Historical accuracy and much of the religious interpretation is questionable. The political analysis is simplistic and incomplete. (Hopefully, you already understand the relations of the Habsburgs, Dutch, Swedes, Germans, and the Pope. Levi spends a lot of time wandering in the wilderness here.) The quality of writing is pretentious in the second half, and questionable throughout. When finished, you will have done little more than confirmed the preconceptions about Richelieu you brought with you, picked up some odd notions about Louis XIII, and maybe have acquired a smattering of dates.
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