The Habsburg Monarchy, 1809-1918

Description

"The Habsburg Monarchy, more than most great powers, was an organization for conducting foreign policy; and its fate was determined quite as much by foreign affairs as by the behaviour of its peoples. The creation of the Austrian Empire was dictated by Napoleon; the establishment of Austria-Hungary by Bismarck; and the Monarchy fell at the end of a great war, which it had itself helped to bring about..." A thoroughly revised and greatly expanded edition of a first-rate history of the Habsburg Empire. First published in 1941, The Habsburg Monarchy has become indispensable to students of nineteenth-century European history. Not only a chronological report of actions and changes, Taylor's work is a provocative exploration into the historical process of the most eventful hundred years of the Habsburg monarchy. As ideas of popular sovereignty and ethnic nationalism transformed political sensibilities over the course of the 19th century, it fed perceptions of the Habsburg Empire as a glaring anachronism in modern Europe – a brittle dynastic shell that had no real relationship to the lives and identities of its diverse inhabitants. But what if this standard story has it all the wrong way round? What if the Habsburg Empire formed a true community of sentiment, and even became a vehicle for self-determination, just as much as the nation-states that replaced it?