The Habsburg Empire: A New History

About this book

A EuropeNow Editors Pick A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year Pieter M. Judsons book informs and stimulates. If his account of Habsburg achievements especially in the 18th century is rather starry-eyed it is a welcome corrective to the black legend usually presented. Lucid elegant full of surprising and illuminating details it can be warmly recommended to anyone with an interest in modern European history. Tim Blanning Wall Street Journal This is an engaging reappraisal of the empire whose legacy a century after its collapse in 1918 still resonates across the nation-states that replaced it in central Europe. Judson rejects conventional depictions of the Habsburg empire as a hopelessly dysfunctional assemblage of squabbling nationalities and stresses its achievements in law administration science and the arts. Tony Barber Financial Times Spectacularly revisionist Judson argues thatthe empire was a force for progress and modernity This is a bold and refreshing book Judson does much to destroy the picture of an ossified regime and state. A. W. Purdue Times Higher Education Judsons reflections on nations states and institutions are of broader interest not least in the current debate on the future of the European Union after Brexit. Annabelle Chapman Prospect