5 books found
Augusta Victoria, Mary, Alexandra, and Zita were four women who were born to rule. In Imperial Requiem, Justin C. Vovk narrates the epic story of four women who were married to the reigning monarchs of Europes last empires during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Using a diverse array of primary and secondary sources, letters, diary entries, and interviews with descendants, Vovk provides an in-depth look into the lives of four extraordinary women who stayed faithfully at their husbands sides throughout the cataclysm of the First World War and the tumultuous years that followed. At the centers of these four great monarchies were Augusta Victoria, Germanys revered empress whose unwavering commitment to her bombastic husband made her a national icon; Mary, whose Cinderella story and immense personal strength made her the soul of the British monarchy through some of its greatest crises; Alexandra, the ill-fated tsarina who helped topple the Russian monarchy through her ineffective rule; and Zita, the resolute empress of Austria whose story of loss and exile captivated the worlds attention for seven decades. Imperial Requiem shares the fascinating story of four princesses who married for love, graced imperial thrones, and watched as their beloved worlds were torn apart by war, revolution, heartache, and loss.
This book, to some extent, is perhaps a strange cocktail, a book about life observations written by a computer scientist, occasionally pulling from philosophy and often drawing from Scriptures. The observations included in this small volume are attempts by the author to understand this very complex thing called life. It includes his observations about people, the world, and life. In sharing this work with the public, it is the author’s hope that the reader will travel with him through the various topics included to the discovery that there is more to life than just the mundane activities of survival that we often get obsessed with. The book consists of thirty-one short topics touching on issues such as love, decision-making, human tendencies, race relations, life as a teacher, family and society, friendship, good versus evil, truth versus falsehood, psychological prisons, stewardship, knowledge and enlightenment, human communication, test of character, and love. The book begins and ends with a focus on the very pertinent and important issue of love. The intent and objective of the author is to inspire additional thought, reflection, and in some cases research on the topics covered. It is also hoped that as readers contemplate the various topics discussed, they will find their points of equilibrium on these issues.