![]() ![]() He writes that Edward was "a keen heterosexual swordsman" and "equipped with standard wedding tackle". His oddly dated prose style borders on the offensive. He begins the book by noting that his father, in his first Christmas mail as Prime Minister, addressed the Duchess as Her Royal Highness, a title deliberately withheld by the Palace. In his writing about the Windsors, Whitlam seems overawed by the pretensions of monarchy. If there is a hero in these pages it is Jesse Owens, the black American sprinter, who was treated shabbily by his own country as much as by Hitler's Germany. I learnt a great deal about the early stages of the Spanish Civil War and the elaborate kitsch of Nazi Berlin. Indeed, no detail is omitted we are offered menus of lavish diners and real-time descriptions of numerous Olympic events. ![]() Whitlam has read assiduously, though only in English, and his book describes in detail the brutal seizure of power by Franco, the Nazi spectacles of the Games and the King's Adriatic yachting holiday. Four Weeks One Summer, by Nicholas Whitlam. ![]()
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