2004 Articles by Amanda Foreman

The New York Times: 24th August 2004
An Ocean Apart, A World of Difference

In a relationship as complicated as America's with Europe, where politics, history and culture collide, politicians and analysts have but a limited role in defining its meaning. Exposure of its more subtle aspects requires the skill of an artist, who can explore the realms of the half-conscious, where the indefinable and the inexpressible reside.
Tina Barney, a photographer known for chronicling the lives of the American upper class, has spent the past several years photographing European aristocrats. Although visual feasts in themselves, the photographs are also cultural artifacts, containing vital clues to understanding the American discourse.

After all, the tensions that exist now between the United States and Europe are not simply a matter of political differences, whether over Iraq, Israel or the Kyoto agreement.................................
The Observer Review: 11th January 2004
Catherine the Great

On the night of 24 August 1572, a screaming mob rampaged through Paris’s narrow streets on a murderous hunt for Huguenots. In only a few hours the entire Protestant population was gone. The mutilated corpses of hundreds of men, women and children ended up in the Seine, poisoning the river for months afterwards. Known as the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, this terrible event has haunted popular imagination for one reason in particular – its chief instigator was a woman, Catherine de Medici, the Queen mother of France.
The violence she unleashed spread through France and for a few days it seemed possible that Catherine would become the Queen Mother of modern genocide. What she had originally planned as a mafia style assassination of her enemies had turned into a national catastrophe. It is no wonder historians have treated her harshly. Moreover, for all her conspiracies and stratagems, Catherine was a far less successful ruler than her contemporary, Elizabeth I. During her 30-year career as Regent for her three sons, France suffered eight religious wars; its riches dwindled and borders shrunk.................................

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