Fall of the House of Habsburg

One of Crankshaw's best, this forthrightly conservative and sympathetic book is premised on the idea that, whatever its faults, Austria's solution to the problems of nationalism and the Balkans were not self-evidently worse than what followed in Europe. He's deliberately rebutting A.J.P. Taylor, as he also does in his biography of Bismarck. But Crankshaw is too good a writer, and too intelligent, to beat a hobbyhorse. He writes magisterially of Franz Josef's reign and the many personalities who came and went. His description of the Franco-Austrian war is particularly good. Readable and humane -- not to be missed by anyone who enjoys history.

Edward Crankenshaw's sympathetic history of the last decades of the Habsburg Empire is an excellent and informative read and good to keep along side the equally good but slightly too harsh history by AJP Taylor. The one criticism of the book is that the author shows an obvious sympathy with the dynasty rather than simply relating the story. Comments on the Hungarians and reference to their manipulation and abuse of the 1867 Compromise to their own benefit are spoken in a censorious manner. The facts may be true but the Hungarians had a number of good reasons for not being crazy about the Empire or its ruling dynasty. To expect anything other than temporary and conditional loyalty from them is expecting too much from a nation the dynasty would have destroyed if it could.

This is a marvelous little history of one of the great royal dynasties of Eurpoe which came to an end with the First World War. Proof of the universal appeal of this book and Crankshaw's writing style lies in the fact that this reviewer has read the book at three different times in his life (once as an undergraduate, another time at the conclusion of law school and yet another time about a year ago). Even though each of these three readings occurred at times when the reviewer's outlook and background on the subject matter was quite different, he derived pleasure and something new with each reading.