THE HABSBURGS
THE RISE AND FALL OF A WORLD POWER
MARTYN RADY
Allen Lane, 397pp, £30, ebook £12.99
‘There’s no strong ideological thread or chain to follow,’ wrote Rupert Christiansen in the Daily Telegraph, for ‘unlike the Romans or the British, the Habsburgs did not create a single social order or rule of law throughout their empire. Even if their instincts were Catholic and conservative, they largely sustained their authority through bureaucratic management and propaganda rather than fanatic persecution or aggressive warfare.’ Spanning a millennium, Rady’s history of the Habsburg dynasty impressed Christiansen immensely.
‘Rady maintains unerring poise as he steers through the depths and complexities of his material. His erudition seems effortless, he never gets bogged down in detail, his prose is pellucid, and he spices the narrative with delightfully dry asides and telling anecdotes... Did you know that Princess Stephanie of Belgium invented and patented the hostess trolley? And how intriguing is Anna of the Tyrol, “a kindly woman of exceptional girth… whose skill at the clavichord was matched only by her dedication to penitential selfflagellation”.’ Paul Lay, in his review for the
Times, reckoned that ‘in less able hands this complex tale could be mired in convolution, but Rady, a professor of central European history at University College London, is a lucid and elegant writer – historians are advised to follow his model of economy and concision. It is impossible to imagine a more erudite and incisive history of this fascinating, flawed and ultimately tragic dynasty.’
In the Evening Standard, Julian Glover found the book to be ‘deeply informed, elegantly written and a joy to read. It also shows the Habsburg world to have been even more bonkers than I had thought... It is all dotty behaviour, insane ceremony accompanied by threat of random execution. Rady’s book is a serious traditional history from the top down – the mass of people only come into it in order to revolt from time to time, usually only to be appropriately repressed. But don’t think that makes it boring. The author scatters asides as treats to keep us gripped, most of which could be books on their own... It would take a great book to tell this unbelievable tale. Fortunately, Rady has written it.’