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A Season Of Splendor: The Court Of Mrs. Astor In Gilded Age New York (2008)

by Greg King(Favorite Author)

3.77 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0470185694 (ISBN13: 9780470185698)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Wiley

review 1: I decided to read some history of New York City since I would be temporarily living in NYC for the Summer & Fall of 2014. I watched the movie the age of innocence and wondered who the people this grand tale was based from and I found this book on Caroline Astor. NYC had a ton of money during the late 19th Century. It is amazing to see how Americans had more money than European royalty and boy did they flaunt it. The balls, galas, dinner parties, jewels, mansions, art, clothing has never amounted in America since. I am in the service industry, it was amazing to read the level of service NYC elite employed to distinguish there wealth! You had an English butler & a French chef the more servants the more social standing. The detail and record of events paints a vivid picture i... moren the mind. The interaction between old & new money is entertaining. When new money could not get a seat at the opera house due to the old money monopolizing the seating ...the new money built a bigger and better opera house the MET. The culture of NYC is ....if you snub me we will just Trump you with something bigger & better!
review 2: There isn't a whole lot to this book: catalogue after catalogue of fortunes, fancy-dress balls and feasts. Greg King's spare and effective prose kept me reading, though. He adds the right amount of human interest without becoming gossipy, the right amount of historical fact without becoming dry and dusty.This isn't a sweeping overview of the Gilded Age, nor a learned analysis of the social or economic factors that led to it. But read in conjunction with such books, it provides a concrete measurement of the wealth that defined the era: it makes you realize just how opulent and decadent the time was. There's also a healthy dose of "lifestyles of the rich and famous" here, if you like that sort of thing, plenty of mansions and art collecting and multi-million dollar shopping sprees. I found it a bit tedious, to say nothing of the crass materialism, but I can understand the appeal of that.With its smooth and effective narration, you could do worse than this book if its narrow focus is what you're looking for. less

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