Queen and Country: The Fifty-Year Reign of Elizabeth II
Watching Queen Elizabeth place flowers at a makeshift memorial to Diana  in 1997, journalist (and renowned Nixon-basher) William Shawcross sympathized  with the often misunderstood monarch: "I thought how lonely she must feel, and  how perplexed she must be by the vast changes through which Britain has passed  in the decades since her accession."The U.K. is now not quite so united, not quite so British, not nearly so  powerful as it was in the time of her father, George VI. Elizabeth has struck  many observers as a lonely, aloof soul, struggling valiantly to hold a difficult  family together while assuring her nation that the constitutional monarchy  remains relevant in the modern world.Over half a century of rule, Shawcross suggests, the queen has risen to every  occasion and capably led both the British Commonwealth and the royal family,  even if both have given her plenty of troubles in the bargain. This well-written  and nicely illustrated portrait does a fine job of showing the many ways she has  earned the affections, respect, and consent of her people.--Gregory  McNamee