An interesting book about Middle Eastern monarchies. The book describes the various courts of the Middle Eastern kingdoms. It is less splendorous than the title suggests. Basically, we have an overview of each kingdom and its major players. There are glimpses of the splendor in which they lived, but that doesn't seem to be the main focus of the book. However, the book is lavishly filled with photographs, some of which do indeed show off the splendor. And, actually, quite a bit of interesting information was included in the photo captions. Sometimes the captions were more interesting to me than the book itself.

A good overview of the Middle Eastern rulers from 1869 to 1945. ( )