Dianaworld

Dianaworld An obsession

Edward White, 1981-

Book - 2025

A fascinating new perspective on the life and afterlife of Diana, Princess of Wales, the planet's all-purpose cultural icon. Over the last forty years, the mythology of Princess Diana has turned the woman who was born Diana Spencer into a symbol for almost anything. From a harbinger of Brexit populism, an all-American consumer capitalist, and the savior of the British aristocracy, to a catalyst for #MeToo and in the words of one superfan 'the biggest punk that's come out of England,' Diana connects with a wider array of people than any member of the royal family ever has. We feel so familiar with Diana that it seems crushingly formal to use anything but her first name. In Dianaworld, Edward White guides us through this s...trange precinct of a global cultural obsession. It's a place of mass delusions, outsized fantasies and quixotic dreams; of druids, psychics, Hollywood stars, obsessive stalkers, radical feminists, and Middle Eastern generals. In a signature, innovative 'exploded biography,' White offers both a portrait of the princess, and group portraits of those who knew her intimately; those who worked with and for her; and the many ordinary people whose connection to Diana reveals her unique and enduring legacy. White draws on a kaleidoscopic array of sources and perspectives never before used in books about Diana or the royal family from interviews with sex workers and professional lookalikes, to the Mass Observation social research project and the Great Diary Project in Britain, and the peculiar work of outsider artists. Diana would have approved of her posthumous title, 'the People's Princess ': the image of a royal with a pauper's soul was exactly how she marketed herself. In Dianaworld, White explores Diana Spencer, the person and the cultural figure by re-creating the world Diana lived in and illuminating her lasting impact on the world she left behind.

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BIOGRAPHY/Diana
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Location Call Number   Status
2nd Floor New Shelf BIOGRAPHY/Diana (NEW SHELF) Checked In
Subjects
Diana, > Princess of Wales, > 1961-1997.
Princesses > Great Britain > Biography.
Biographies.
Genres
Biographies
Published
New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company [2025]
Language
English
Main Author
Edward White, 1981- (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
viii, 402 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9781324021568
  • Introduction
  • 1. Blood Family
  • 2. The Rat Pack
  • 3. Will the Real Diana Please Sit Down
  • 4. Don't Do It, Di!
  • 5. Follow the Fairytale West
  • 6. Upstairs, Downstairs
  • 7. The Royal Touch
  • 8. Dianaji
  • 9. Don't Trust Anyone Who Doesn't Want to Be a Queen
  • 10. Whatever "In Love" Means
  • 11. Do You Think They'll Give Me a Job When the Revolution Comes?
  • 12. Dianarama
  • Acknowkdgments
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Credits
  • Index
Review by Booklist Review

So much rested on her slender shoulders. There was parenting a future king, propping up the image of the British monarchy, championing global causes, and fulfilling the fantasies of dreamy young girls everywhere. What got lost in this epic level of responsibility was the woman herself. Diana, Princess of Wales, born Diana Spencer, was of aristocratic lineage but was revered for her perceived common touch. As she was, by turns, idolized and demonized by the press and the public, the adulation and opprobrium cast her way spawned a cottage industry of kitsch, launched numerous biopics, and inspired countless retrospective memoirs and tell-alls. In the end, however, the world came no closer to knowing the "true" Diana. Journalist White takes an equitable and ecumenical approach to this complex and tragic icon, placing Diana's life in social and historical context, from her origin story to her legacy, weaving together memories and observations from close confidants and perfect strangers alike. White ensures that readers will appreciate the phenomenal impact this often misunderstood yet perennially alluring woman has made on global culture.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Biographer White follows up The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock with a kaleidoscopic portrait of Princess Diana (1961--1997), as viewed by the people whose lives she touched. Describing how the princess's 1991 diplomatic visit to Pakistan and romantic relationship with British Pakistani surgeon Hasnat Khan endeared her to many in the country, White suggests that some Pakistani women saw Diana's tumultuous relationship with Prince Charles as akin to their own troubled arranged marriages. Diana's outspoken advocacy on behalf of AIDS patients made her a "gay icon," White contends, arguing that her memory "has become entwined with a particular idea of gay experience, in which defiance and radical honesty are king and queen." White's central contention is that people see in Diana what they wish to see. For instance, he notes that the anti-monarchist Julie Burchill called the princess "the greatest force for republicanism since Oliver Cromwell" despite Diana, as White sees it, helping to revitalize the Windsors' flagging reputation. White takes an evenhanded perspective on his subject--positing that the princess could be "beguiling and frustrating, admirable and infuriating, weirdly clueless and astonishingly astute"--and while he's largely uninterested in discovering the "real" Diana behind the myth, his panoramic approach attests to her lasting influence across the world. This achieves the difficult task of finding a novel take on the much-discussed former royal. Photos. (Apr.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review

An exploration of the mythology and reality surrounding the doomed British royal. Diana Spencer came into the orbit of the House of Windsor holding a strong hand: The Windsors were German, after all, but she could trace her English ancestry back for many centuries, with the result that there's something to the saw that she was "more royal than the royals." Notes biographer White, this isn't quite so: "You can't move for royal branches in the Windsor family tree." Even so, Diana had good cause to rebuke Prince Charles, her misery-inducing husband, with the bitter words, "When I came here, I had my title. I don't need your title." As White notes, Diana's distance from the Windsors brought her nothing but sympathy and the Windsors nothing but scorn--and to ensure that, Diana cultivated connections with tabloid writers and TV personalities that she might otherwise have had nothing to do with, "relationships…purely of convenience." White charts Diana's influence in several, beg pardon, realms: So closely was she watched as a fashion icon that long after her death, gift shops did a land office business in selling red sweaters dotted with a row of white sheep punctuated by a single black one, "as though they were official Diana merchandise." Moreover, she did much to ease tensions between white Britain and the immigrant population by dating a Pakistani doctor postdivorce. Some of the corners of Dianaworld are a touch sordid, as with the conspiracy theory that held that she was about to expose British arms merchants, "naming and shaming those of her compatriots who profited from land-mines." Yet those theories still have a hold on British popular culture, in which Diana, thanks to a statue unveiled in 2021, has morphed into "a quasi-religious figure, a Mary of the multifaith age." Devotees of the "People's Princess" will revel in White's explorations of the territory behind the curtain. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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