Review: Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire

Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



This book was probably the hardest history book I have had to get through - not including some Canadian history textbooks - and I'm still unsure as to the absolutely exact reason why. I think it may have been the writing style; at the same time as it was very, VERY dry and very textbook (and you know something's dry when they're talking about sexual scandal in what feels like a monotone voice), there were also many, many typos and run-on sentences that really bothered me. I just felt there were better ways to construct sentences, and I don't know if it was meant to be a stylistic choice - as the writing at the time, such as the writing that Georgiana composed herself, wasn't in keeping with modern grammar rules - or if there were just a lot of unfinished thoughts. Foreman also seemed, to me, to be a contradictory writer. She seemed to go from judging Georgiana very harshly to lifting her up onto a pedestal. The end of the book had this happen very intensely, when Foreman talked about how we cannot apply modern heterosexual or homosexual ideas to these eighteenth century relationships - yet the main focus of your book WAS applying those ideas to those relationships. (At least that's what seemed to be happening for the majority of the book for me; that and talking about how women shouldn't have gone near politics, yet applauding Georgiana for standing out, and then judging her again for retreating after she was shamed for it repeatedly.) There seemed to be a lot of flipping back and forth, and Foreman didn't seem to make a real decision on how she viewed Georgiana.

There was one lucid observation that was interesting to me: "The propensity of women's historians to ignore high politics, and of political historians to ignore women, has resulted in a profound misunderstanding of one of the most sexually integrated periods of British history." I really loved this, because it is really true. I haven't delved as deeply into women's history as I would like - in university history courses, you tend to focus on more well known accounts, and I never did get to take a really good gender in history course - but I feel, from what I've read, that this is true. Despite women in politics being a real thing - just because they didn't sit in the House did not mean they weren't present and working harder than the men in Parliament - it's rarely discussed, and I thought that was a great point to include. I do just wish she had been as decisive about the rest of her views on the rest of Georgiana's relationships. I think there's more to Georgiana's life than I learned here - since the majority focused on her life as it related to men and really painted her as completely idiotic with money and then occasionally painted her as a heroine in politics, which was very confusing - and though I didn't entirely enjoy this, I think I'll be seeking more information elsewhere.



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