Elizabeth Stuart is commonly known as the Winter Queen thanks to her brief time as Queen-Consort of Bohemia, and was very much involved in the politics of northwestern Europe during the first half of the seventeenth century. Historians—almost all men—long dismissed Elizabeth as flighty and ineffectual. Nadine Akkerman argues that a reappraisal of her career is needed, and that Elizabeth was far shrewder than she's been given credit for. Akkerman makes a convincing case, particularly for Elizabeth consciously modelling herself on her cousin and namesake, Elizabeth I, and for her knowing how to wield the visual language of power. While at times this biography is a bit dry, Akkerman makes excellent use of the surviving archival material relating to Elizabeth and this is bound to be the authoritative biography of her for some time. ( )