A wonderfully fresh look at the life of a woman who's been written about for centuries, Theresa Earenfight's Catherine of Aragon: Infanta of Spain, Queen of England explores its subject's life through a focus on her physical possessions such as portraits, books, and shoes. Earenfight's framing of Catherine's life is very much informed by recent work in queenship studies and object-oriented approaches to history. For instance, Earenfight explores the diplomatic gifts sent to/from Catherine during the 1520s to complicate more traditional takes on Catherine during this period as a passive and dowdy woman who is no match for her husband's power.

Earenfight's prose is very approachable (albeit there are a shocking number of typos here for a university press book), and that plus the recap timeline which follows each chapter would no doubt make this a good book for use in the college classroom. ( )