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tmgreat's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
fast-paced
5.0
balletbookworm's review against another edition
3.0
This was a pretty readable history. I was interested in this new book about the Habsburgs (I've had a mild interest ever since I visited Austria bc that family has history all over Europe) and wanted to compare it with a much older book I read by Andrew Wheatcroft [b:The Habsburgs: Embodying Empire|432708|The Habsburgs Embodying Empire|Andrew Wheatcroft|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348520203l/432708._SY75_.jpg|421666] since there's 30 years of change in how we write about history.
What I remember from reading the Wheatcroft is that it really pays a lot of attention to biographical detail about the individual members of the Habsburg family, so that you can really see how the family spread out and intermarried (wow, the intermarriage) and it felt very evenly spaced out over time. This new history by Martyn Rady tilts more toward modern history (17th century onward, particularly the rather cluster-fuck ending of the empire via Franz Joseph and WWI) but also really brings to life the rise of nationalism and the disparate nature of the many different cultures and states that were never truly sewn together into one imperial nation-state, much to the chagrin of many Habsburg rulers. So while I feel like the Wheatcroft is more of a long biography, the new Rady history is more about how the Habsburg family saw itself and how that translated into their successes and failures as sovereigns.
What I remember from reading the Wheatcroft is that it really pays a lot of attention to biographical detail about the individual members of the Habsburg family, so that you can really see how the family spread out and intermarried (wow, the intermarriage) and it felt very evenly spaced out over time. This new history by Martyn Rady tilts more toward modern history (17th century onward, particularly the rather cluster-fuck ending of the empire via Franz Joseph and WWI) but also really brings to life the rise of nationalism and the disparate nature of the many different cultures and states that were never truly sewn together into one imperial nation-state, much to the chagrin of many Habsburg rulers. So while I feel like the Wheatcroft is more of a long biography, the new Rady history is more about how the Habsburg family saw itself and how that translated into their successes and failures as sovereigns.
imbrenda's review against another edition
4.0
More like a series if chronological essays about aspects of Habsburg rule. More useful as a place to start on digging into various eras of Habsburg history rather than a comprehensive assessment.
andrewfinkel1's review against another edition
Very interesting book that covers 500+ years of history.