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The Rise and Fall of the Habsburg Monarchy
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 31, 2012
I've read three books dealing with the history of the Habsburg Monarchy in Austria-Hungary, one, The Eagles Fall, popular, another dry and scholarly, and this one, an accessibly intermediate introduction to the topic. Other than simply wanting to get a grip on modern history my interest in the old Empire has been more recently inspired by the massive migration of Bosnians to this neighborhood since the nineties and the many other nationalities also resident whose ancestors were once under the Habsburg dominion.
April 29, 2020
The book is a good academic book concerning the Habsburg Empire, but the original French title looks to more directly translate as “Monarchy and peoples of the Danube.” This title much more clearly reflects the information in the book. The English title might lead one to think the focus is primarily the Hapsburg monarchs which is not the case.
I would recommend this book to people who have an interest in the subject matter and already know at least some of the broad strokes of the history around it. Also, the book gets better as it goes on, increasing in clarity and fluidity. While this could just reflect the historical dynamics of the time periods (the book proceeds chronologically for the most part), I suspect this reflects that the author had specialized to a greater degree in the history of the Habsburgs from the 18th-20th centuries.
Overall, a book with many interesting ideas and insights. These insights also include frequent remarks concerning historiography on different subjects dealt with in the book, which, to me, is a nice bonus as someone interested in that area.
I would recommend this book to people who have an interest in the subject matter and already know at least some of the broad strokes of the history around it. Also, the book gets better as it goes on, increasing in clarity and fluidity. While this could just reflect the historical dynamics of the time periods (the book proceeds chronologically for the most part), I suspect this reflects that the author had specialized to a greater degree in the history of the Habsburgs from the 18th-20th centuries.
Overall, a book with many interesting ideas and insights. These insights also include frequent remarks concerning historiography on different subjects dealt with in the book, which, to me, is a nice bonus as someone interested in that area.
January 9, 2020
This is a good graduate level history of the Habsburg dynasty, that is so thorough and inclusive, that by the end, I too could understand how the changes in Europe, particularly nationalism, sowed their destruction. It's rather sad too. The last Habsburgs stood up to Hitler and went sent to Auschwitz where they were gassed. i read another book after this, and basically she cribbed Tapie's perfusive notes. This one is tough going, very detailed, but spot on.
July 27, 2016
I like to read epics. When I was younger, these were multivolume fantasy novels a la Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. More recently, when I find myself wanting a grand, sweeping narrative I tend to turn to history. There are plenty of epics here, rises and flourishing and falls, and at the end of whatever I've chosen I've learned a bit more about the shape of the larger epic we're all still moving within.
In a historical epic, you want a good balance between detail and scope, something you don't tackle for in-depth analysis but rather for a broad outline and a good, accurate story. In this genre I'd classify successful pieces like Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and Norwich's (abridged) History of Byzantium as well as Keegan's The First World War. Part of the appeal of reading works like these is that there's no exam at the end; you can read a story that doesn't have any direct bearing on your research of academic discipline. This gives just a bit more freedom to let the narrative wash over you, to get caught up in it like a good novel and enjoy it for the way the historians tell their tale.
My latest historical epic was an English translation of a French historian's Rise and Fall of the Habsburg Monarchy, and it didn't quite hit that perfect balance. We had recently spent some time in Gorizia and Trieste, so we had touched a small corner of this history. The Habsburgs, ruling house of the Austro-Hungarian Empire for centuries, offer a sort of bridge between the regalia and imperial splendor of the late Middle Ages and the rise of nationalism and modernity into the 1900s. They were a shaping force in central Europe for hundreds of years, with an empire that united Austria and Hungary along with lands now including the Czech Republic, Slovakia, parts of Poland, and into the Balkans and Italy. It also united dozens of linguistic groups and cultures and provided a buffer between the Ottoman Empire and the rest of Europe. It was in its height and glory that its capital, Vienna, became the cultural jewel from which things like the Vienna Circle and the work of Wittgenstein sprang. And yet its growing instability with the rise of nationalism helped trigger the First World War, during which the entire edifice crumbled abruptly.
Certainly a lot to cover in a single-volume treatment, and plenty of epic scope.
What we have in this volume though is a bit more crunchy, a lot more political history than one might want. We get loads of data about populations in Hungary, Austria, and Transylvania over the centuries, the development of agricultural production, economic details, and an in-depth examination of the political structure of these three kingdoms. Tapié spends a good deal of time highlighting the mechanics of how the three primary sections of the empire were united and stayed that way. He also focuses on art, architecture, and music of the empire over its development. For Tapié, as likely for the citizens of the empire, the monarchy was equivalent to the political union of these kingdoms, and vice versa.
The characters of the various Habsburg monarchs don't make much impression on the pages as individuals. They come and go and are remembered for their policies, with only a few like Maria Theresa or Francis Joseph making a mark as human characters in the narrative. They seem there primarily to fill specific roles, sometimes roles that only seem given in retrospect, such as the assassinated heir presumptive the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, whose death at the hands of Serbian radicals set off the dominoes of the World War.
For an attempt at understanding wide swaths of the history of Europe, as well as the patchwork of languages and ethnicities that were bound up for a time together and now have become the various states of central Europe, this is a hefty journey. It doesn't simply give you the exciting portions, and Tapié's discussion of wars in particular become confusing morasses of names and places. Rather, it's a study in the politics of empire-- not people but institutions-- and how unity was maintained among diversity for hundreds of years.
In a historical epic, you want a good balance between detail and scope, something you don't tackle for in-depth analysis but rather for a broad outline and a good, accurate story. In this genre I'd classify successful pieces like Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and Norwich's (abridged) History of Byzantium as well as Keegan's The First World War. Part of the appeal of reading works like these is that there's no exam at the end; you can read a story that doesn't have any direct bearing on your research of academic discipline. This gives just a bit more freedom to let the narrative wash over you, to get caught up in it like a good novel and enjoy it for the way the historians tell their tale.
My latest historical epic was an English translation of a French historian's Rise and Fall of the Habsburg Monarchy, and it didn't quite hit that perfect balance. We had recently spent some time in Gorizia and Trieste, so we had touched a small corner of this history. The Habsburgs, ruling house of the Austro-Hungarian Empire for centuries, offer a sort of bridge between the regalia and imperial splendor of the late Middle Ages and the rise of nationalism and modernity into the 1900s. They were a shaping force in central Europe for hundreds of years, with an empire that united Austria and Hungary along with lands now including the Czech Republic, Slovakia, parts of Poland, and into the Balkans and Italy. It also united dozens of linguistic groups and cultures and provided a buffer between the Ottoman Empire and the rest of Europe. It was in its height and glory that its capital, Vienna, became the cultural jewel from which things like the Vienna Circle and the work of Wittgenstein sprang. And yet its growing instability with the rise of nationalism helped trigger the First World War, during which the entire edifice crumbled abruptly.
Certainly a lot to cover in a single-volume treatment, and plenty of epic scope.
What we have in this volume though is a bit more crunchy, a lot more political history than one might want. We get loads of data about populations in Hungary, Austria, and Transylvania over the centuries, the development of agricultural production, economic details, and an in-depth examination of the political structure of these three kingdoms. Tapié spends a good deal of time highlighting the mechanics of how the three primary sections of the empire were united and stayed that way. He also focuses on art, architecture, and music of the empire over its development. For Tapié, as likely for the citizens of the empire, the monarchy was equivalent to the political union of these kingdoms, and vice versa.
The characters of the various Habsburg monarchs don't make much impression on the pages as individuals. They come and go and are remembered for their policies, with only a few like Maria Theresa or Francis Joseph making a mark as human characters in the narrative. They seem there primarily to fill specific roles, sometimes roles that only seem given in retrospect, such as the assassinated heir presumptive the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, whose death at the hands of Serbian radicals set off the dominoes of the World War.
For an attempt at understanding wide swaths of the history of Europe, as well as the patchwork of languages and ethnicities that were bound up for a time together and now have become the various states of central Europe, this is a hefty journey. It doesn't simply give you the exciting portions, and Tapié's discussion of wars in particular become confusing morasses of names and places. Rather, it's a study in the politics of empire-- not people but institutions-- and how unity was maintained among diversity for hundreds of years.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews