Customer Reviews

The Pomp and Politics of Patriotism: Imperial Celebrations in Habsburg Austria, 1848-1916 (Central European Studies)

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The world of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the long dead country of the Emperor Franz Joseph I now seems utterly mysterious. It is frozen in incomprehensible pageantry, strange rituals, 'kiss your hand dear lady', svelte uniforms (before WWI it was once voted the best dressed army in Europe.) This was the mysterious past so lovingly evoked by the movie The Illusionist.

But here is serious and scholarly book that explains the inner workings of this lost world. Daniel Unowsky is a professor at the University of Memphis who writes with verve, deep knowledge, and flashes of wry humour. This book should be read by everyone with an interest in Austria.

Unowsky understands the importance of ceremony and symbols in Austria-Hunagary. The centre of all this activity was the Emperor himself, the guarantee of stability, the model of a dutiful first servant of his people. This adulation was not accidental and in a riveting chapter 'Consuming the Emperor', he shows how the artless patriotism was in fact controlled and manipulated to achieve 'patriotic' ends.

This book is a must if you want to understand the reality behind the last years of the Habsburg Empire

This professor does not truly know anything about the subject he wrote about. He has numerous mistakes, as well as outright unfactual statements, in his book. If it were catagorised as fiction, it would be a much better read.