The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550-1700: An Interpretation [Paperback]

Robert John Weston Evans (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Habsburg monarchy dominated European history for nearly half a millennium. Until the publication...of this excellent book no one had really explained why....Evans' book, which won the Wolfson Literary Award for History in 1980, grapples expertly with the numerous problems which inhibited many an earlier scholar."--Times Literary Supplement

"as a compendium and reference book for the intellectual history of this period the volume...with its excellent bibliography and good appendices, can be regarded as a standard work."--Austrian History Yearbook

Product Details

• Paperback: 556 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (March 22, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198730853
• ISBN-13: 978-0198730859
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,199,296 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #74 in Books > History > Europe > Central Europe

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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading for "early modern" history, July 27, 2001

By 

Michael K. Smith (South Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550-1700: An Interpretation (Paperback)

Curiously, many historians have tried to esplain the decline and expiration of the Habsburgs, but the family's rise to power seems not to have been similarly examined. Evans bases his work solidly on primary sources in the period of the Central European Counter-Reformation. He also presents a balanced view of 16th century monarchy, since the consolidation of the Habsburg state was essentially the result of a skillful series of bilateral agreements between greater and lesser rulers. This highly regarded work received several major awards and has established itself as mandatory reading for any serious student of early modern history.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Extremel misleading title, March 15, 2010

By 

Gregory Ticker - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550-1700: An Interpretation (Paperback)

The title of the book is estremely misleading. Only from the Introduction it becomes clear that author belongs to the group determining themselves, as Historrians of the Culture. His main idea is that real making of the Habsbug Empire were not all politicall events and economical developements of the period, but creation of the more or less uniform cultural and ideological space - Baroque Civilization of the Eastern and Central Europe and Counter-Reformation embracing various territories, which formed the Empire. To read this book a reader should be well versed in ideas and personalities of the late Humanism, Reformation, and Counter-Reformation. Because author absolutely disinterested in political, economical and military History,which he treats as mere background and mentions off-hand, reader should have at least basic knowledge of the 30 Years War, the fight with Ottomans over Hungary, seige of Viena, and Emperial revanche on Balkans which in final count put the Empire on the road towards World War I and her demise, and History of Hungary and Bohemia as well. Book is of very little value for general reader, although it coud be interested to doctoral student, working on the History of the one of Habsburg lands and wishing to add some cultural dimension to his studies. The book was published 30 years ago and was greeted with loud accolades. For las 60 years European oligarhies are engaged in the process of the building of neo-Charlemagnic entity, a kind of the Fourth Reich, founded on the suppression of the national and nationalities, and protruding artificial Europeaniness. It is common to hear, that Habsburg Empire was a model for European coooperation, which was brutally shattered by crude nationalism of petty Nations, with aid of Woodroe's Wilson imbecility of "Nation's right for Self-Determination". For those who sees in the Nation State incarnation of Evil, and for those who for more than half a century are trying to create EU as the Center of Power equidistant from the US and the East, USSR is no more existing, this book is useful, as proofing them to be right. How this fits not ideology, but the Historical Truth, is a different subject.