|
|
Article: King and country; Modern Spanish history.("Juan Carlos: El Rey de un Pueblo")(Book Review)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- June 7, 2003
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
A VISITOR to the exiled Spanish royal family recalls how he once watched the then four-year-old Prince Juan Carlos being photographed in a cavalry officer's uniform for the sake of the monarchist sympathisers in Spain who had sent it to him. For more than an hour, the prince obliged the photographer without complaint until a nanny took him away, removed his boots--and found the feet inside chafed raw. "His father, Don Juan," the visitor observed, "had instilled in him from a very early age that 'Bourbons don't cry except in bed'."
Paul Preston is a British academic, and this is a scholarly biography. But its central theme is very much a human one: theoften cruel ...