Downey Kirstin - Isabella: the warrior queen

Praise for Kirstin Downeys

ISABELLA

Downey has crafted a capable, thoroughly researched account of Isabellas life that clearly conveys her crucial role.

The Boston Globe

From Game of Thrones to Pillars of the Earth, popular culture offers up medieval stories where royal blood grabs for power, where crucial alliances are built between church and state, where important people suddenly fall over dead after a sumptuous meal, poisoned by a hidden rival. But this world did, in fact, exist, and the subject of Kirstin Downeys new biography, Queen Isabella of Castile, maneuvered through it with unlikely and thrilling success.

BookPage

A strong, fascinating woman, Isabella helped to usher in the modern age, and this rich, clearly written biography is a worthy chronicle of her impressive yet controversial life.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Kirstin Downey makes medieval history read like a modern-day thriller. Queen Isabellas life unfolded at the pivotal moment when the old world was astonished by the discovery of the new, and this graceful and insightful biography reveals her crucial role in making it happen.

Deirdre Bair, National Book Awardwinning author of Samuel Beckett

Kirstin Downey triumphantly restores Isabella to her rightful place in history. This is an engrossing new portrait of one of the most fascinating and controversial women who ever lived.

Amanda Foreman, author of the New York Times bestseller Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire

Queen Isabella was the most important woman in the history of Europe, and more than any person of her era she set the stage for modern Europe and America. Using Muslim, Jewish, and Christian sources, Kirstin Downeys gripping biography reveals how Isabella acquired such importance and vividly narrates the incredible drama of her life.

Jack Weatherford, author of the New York Times bestseller Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

In this astonishing biography, Kirstin Downey brings to life the most powerful queen in history, whose extraordinary impact on the worldfor good and illcontinues to this day. Downey is particularly good at showing the human side of Isabella, whose life was an unending struggle to assert herself while navigating the countless intrigues and treachery of men who wanted to bring her down, including her own faithless and jealous husband, Ferdinand. Its a fascinating story with great resonance for today.

Lynne Olson, author of the New York Times bestseller Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America Fight Over World War II, 19391941

Perfect for both historical novices and experts in European history, this solidly researched, engaging description of Isabellas achievements also humanizes her through discussion of her intricate relationships with combative family members and allows readers to see Isabellas fingerprints on Renaissance culture and religion.

Publishers Weekly

KIRSTIN DOWNEY

ISABELLA

Kirstin Downey is the author of The Woman Behind the New Deal, which was a finalist for the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She was one of the writers of the New York Times bestselling Financial Crisis Inquiry Report and was previously a staff writer at The Washington Post, where she shared in the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings. She was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2001. She is married to Neil Warner Averitt, and together they have five children.

www.kirstindowney.com

ALSO BY KIRSTIN DOWNEY

The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life and Legacy of Frances PerkinsSocial Security, Unemployment Insurance, and the Minimum Wage

FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, NOVEMBER 2015

Copyright 2014 by Kirstin Downey

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Ltd., Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, in 2014.

Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Nan A. Talese/Doubleday edition as follows:

Downey, Kirstin.

Isabella : the warrior queen / Kirstin Downey.First edition.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Isabella I, Queen of Spain, 14511504.

2. QueensSpainBiography.

3. SpainHistoryFerdinand and Isabella, 14791516. I. Title.

DP163.D69 2014 946.03092dc23 [B] 2014003895

Anchor Books Trade Paperback ISBN9780307742162

eBook ISBN9780385534123

Cover design by theBookDesigners

Cover painting: Isabella I 'The Catholic' by Jose da Rosa Monastery of La Rabida, Huelva, Andalusia, Spain/Bridgeman Images; swords Kjolak/Shutterstock

Author photograph Michael Lionstar

Maps by Gene Thorp

Book design by Pei Loi Koay

www.anchorbooks.com

v4.1

a

To Laura Gregg Roa, who sat on the seawall with me in Coco Solo, Panama, dreaming of sailing ships and distant lands, and the queen who sent the explorer to our shores

19572009

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