Customer Reviews

The Habsburg Empire, 1790-1918

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I found this book on the shelves of a house I was renting in Rome last year (which belongs to a Habsburg descendent). I suspect I would have seen a lot more of Rome if I hadn't decided to read it.

Macartney's book, which appeared in the late 1960s, is the model of what a modern, comprehensive history book can be. It is exhaustively researched, filled with all sorts of data on demographic, agricultural and economic trends. Yet Macartney also leads us with sure hand, and astounding erudition, through the maze of politics, diplomacy and Habsburg family dramas. He controls all of this vast and complex material with wit and elegance.

While later historians have challenged some aspects of his analysis, his book remains that against which all others on the topic must be judged.

Usually, the historians of the Austro-Hungarian Empire writing in English have begun their professional career reading German, and then proceeded to learn Hungarian sufficient for their purposes.
C.A. MacArtney, in contrast, began his written work with histories of Hungary--medieval Hungary at that.
Only after writing several such works, and collecting and editing documents on early modern Hapsburg and Hohenzollern history, did he, at the peak of his powers, proceed to write this masterpiece of the historians' art: a survey of the history of Austria-Hungary, seen from within rather than what foreign diplomats believed.
The Hapsburg Empire, 1790-1918, has nothing with which to to be compared, let alone equalled, in its comprehensive coverage, in its detailed examination of contemporary sources, and in its judicious balance.
I am delighted that alibris has it on offer.