The Habsburg Empire 1700-1918
Publisher: Addison Wesley Publishing Company
Published: September 1997
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 352
ISBN-13: 9780582090088
Subjects: European history (ie other than Britain & Ireland); World history: c 1750 to c 1900; World history: from c 1900 -; Germany; 20th century; c 1700 to c 1800; c 1800 to c 1900; Europe - General; History - General History; Textbooks; History: World
Description: This is the first part of a two-volume history of the Habsburg Empire from its medieval origins to its dismemberment in the First World War. The second part, on the Habsburg Empire from 1700 to 1918, is now in preparation. The present volume, which is self-contained, meets a long-felt need for a systematic survey in English of the Habsburgs and their lands in the late medieval and early modern period. While it is primarily concerned with the lands and peoples of central and northern Europe who had been brought under the personal rule of the Habsburg dynasty by the end of the Middle Ages - most notably the Austrians, Germans, Czechs and Hungarians - the history of the Spanish Habsburgs in Spain and the Netherlands is also covered in sufficient detail to show the reader how the fortunes of the Austrian and Spanish branches of the family were interlinked. The family history of the Habsburgs themselves is skillfully interwoven with the processes of state formation. Much biographical detail of the dominant personalities of the dynasty emerges from the narrative; and though the treatment is primarily political, there are extended discussions of economic developments, social change, and major cultural movements. Because the Habsburg Empire was, and remained, dynastic and diverse rather than national and centralised, it covered a huge range of different peoples, cultures, constitutions and separate histories. Few historians have had the breadth of knowledge - or the courage - to attempt a single systematic survey of its development and its fortunes. Yet the Habsburgs were the great superpower of Central Europe for five centuries until our own, and, in the period covered by the present volume, much more even than that - as rulers also of Spain and the Netherlands, and with the headship of the Holy Roman Empire itself as a de facto family possession. The size of the task is thus itself an indication of the size of the gap that Professor Berenger's first volume now fills. Clear, balanced, authoritative and accessible, it is a remarkable feat of synthesis and exposition.