Book Description
Consort to Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, Elizabeth was a modern woman who fled the confines of Habsburg to roam free--she fancied dangerous riding, sailing and poetry--but her life ended with her assassination in 1896. "Haslip writes with vividness and immediacy... a serious book which is highly readable." --Edward Crankshaw.
Customer Reviews:
Pleasantly Surprised..........2007-02-16
I was dreading that this book would be like all other's in that it would portray Elizabeth as a poor little spoiled, mis-understood rich girl. It didn't and I found that very refreshing.
My only critism of this book is that there is only one occasion when the author translated the french, german, russian, etc. quotes that were used and I found that mildly annoying as I don't speak or read any of those languages.
Overall a very good book!
Hapsburg or Habsburg?.......2005-07-20
I really enjoyed this book, there was only a minor matter which rather annoyed me. I wonder why nobody seems to have taken the trouble of checking the proper spelling of all those European names?
As a native speaker of both German and Hungarian, I was quite
distracted by reading Gödollo instead of Gödöllõ, to name just one of many blunders.
Crenneville sometimes becomes Grenneville, Marie Vetsera turns into a Mary, Maria Theresia is always Maria Theresa, robbed of an i, the Ballhausplatz is shortened into Ballplatz, and while Hapsburg is not exactly wrong, it was apparently never used officially - and you don't often come across it even in Austria.
Perhaps in future editions someone might provide corrections? I think the book is worth it.
Reads more like a novel than a biography.......2004-03-29
Top of Form
I was somewhat reluctant to first start reading The Lonely Empress because, from the some of the biographies I've read (but certainly not all!), they tend to start out interesting but then become dull and boring. It usually takes a talented author to write a biography on a boring royal. But even an unskilled author would have no trouble about sounding fascinating if their subject matter was Elisabeth of Austria.
Born a mere daughter of a duke in Bavaria, Elisabeth had a fairytale (ish) romance. The emperor of Austria, Francis Joseph, was already engaged to Elisabeth's sister Helen when he fell in love with her. All of a sudden, to everyone's surprise, the Emperor started to rant about the grace and beauty of this younger sister, much to the dismay of his mother, the archduchess Sophie, who thought that Helen would become the perfect empress.
Elisabeth was still a child when she became engaged to the Emperor. Suddenly, she wasn't allowed to run wild, like she had been when she was younger. Elisabeth had been known to skip her lessons and go out riding for hours. She inherited her father's peculiarity and was known to be her happiest when surrounded by less than royal people. Her father, Duke Max, was renowned for his strangeness. He was known to travel the Bavarian countryside to escape his duties and delighted in circuses. The poor Duchess Ludovica, Elisabeth's mother, must have had a terrible time with her daughter and equally childish husband. Because of her strangeness and wild country ways, the Viennese court look down upon Elisabeth.
What makes this book more interesting is how the author has portrayed Elisabeth. She doesn't try to make her into a selfish, spoiled woman yet she doesn't spend the whole book describing her flawless beauty. Elisabeth seems to be a difficult topic to write about. As many people who have met the Empress say about her throughout the book, "She could be quite charming when she wanted to be. Yet she could also become cold and haughty."
Elisabeth has you admiring her at times, like when she tries to help the Hungarian people regain their Constitution, and at other times hating her, the way she treated her husband and children, the woman whose husband spent fortunes building her three homes around Europe and who still wasn't grateful or satisfied. This woman traveled to countries far away so she could escape her duties as an Empress and her husband.
But one feels for Elisabeth at how much misfortune she had dealt with in her life. She seems to be a caged bird, she seems to have those natures that cannot be trapped or caged. She needed wide spaces so she can spread her wings. The author portrayed Elisabeth excellently and made the book an enjoyable read.
Captivating HerStory.......2002-12-04
I first learned about Sissi during my senior year of high school when my German teacher had a connection with someone in the international airline biz and could get her students back issues of German magazines like "Der Spiegel" and "Gala." I grabbed an issue of Gala and there was the most enchanting woman on the cover. It turned out to be Romy Schneider and the magazine was celebrating the 100th anniversary of Sissi's death.
I was utterly FASCINATED, reading about her life, her beauty cult, her self-abusive trials with anorexia and bulimia, her marriage to the emperor, and so forth.
A few years later, I got the chance to study abroad in Austria and hat the opportunity to visit actual historical Sissi-related sites.
When I got back to the US for my senior semester of college, I took a women's studies course and did a paper of the Austro-Germanic Beauty Cult surrounding Empress Elisabeth of Austria. This, along with my personal experiences in Austria and Hamann's book, provided me with a plethora of information about Elisabeth.
But what made me truly appreciate this book was the way that the author presented the material. This book read like a novel. I feel that Haslip provided a very well rounded amount of historical material that doesn't feel one-sided (very pro-Elisabeth or focusing solely on how beautiful she was).
If you're interested in a different "princess story," this empress will captivate you!
Well written biography of Sissi.......2002-08-02
Prior to visiting Vienna last summer, I hadn't known much about Elizabeth of Austria or Sissi as she was often called. Seeing Schonbrunn and the Hofburg made me curious to learn more about her, and this book certainly makes for interesting reading. The author provides details not only about Elizabeth and her family, but also about the politics of the day. Elizabeth comes across as a study in contrasts: on the one hand, she could be very charming and gracious, on the other hand she appears to have been fundamentally self-centered and unsuited for the duties of an Empress. Wrapped up in her own pursuits, obsessed by the thought of gaining weight, growing old and losing her beauty, she was restless, possessive and prone to depression. At the end of the book, I felt much more sympathy for the Emperor Franz Joseph who loved Sissi to her dying day, despite the many separations he endured that were caused by her constant wandering around Europe and despite her unwillingness or inability to perform the duties traditionally expected of an Empress. Overall, this is a well-written biography, and my only caveat would be that Haslip sometimes makes allusions, for example regarding Elizabeth's illness, that are not fully explained which can be frustrating for the reader.
Average customer rating:
- What a Beautiful Girl, er Book!
- Interesting Take on the Life of an Empress
- Elizabeth
- The Princess Bride
- good, but too short, and not enough detail
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Elisabeth: The Princess Bride, Austria-Hungary, 1853 (The Royal Diaries)
Barry Denenberg
Manufacturer: Scholastic Inc.
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0439266440 |
Book Description
Author Barry Denenberg brings us into the whirlwind that is the life of Princess Elisabeth of Austria. A free and impetuous spirit, Elisabeth was chosen at the tender age of fifteen (over her older sister) to be the wife of Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria. From that moment on, she is thrown into an intimidating world of restrictions and tremendous responsibilities. Feeling lonely and alienated, Elisabeth is forced to rely upon her own personal strength, which is what eventually leads her down the aisle and into an uncertain future.
Customer Reviews:
What a Beautiful Girl, er Book!.......2007-04-24
This story about Elisabeth a.k.a. Sisi, is fascinating in every way possible.
It is about a girl visiting the Emperor to final marriage arrangements between the handsome Emperor and Sisi's sister, Helene. But Franz Joseph is delighted with beautiful Elisabeth, that he choses HER to be his wife, to his mother's dismay. To read more about Elisabeth's life with the Emperor(or about her long, aubourn hair) don't flip through the pages of this novel, but actually read it.
Interesting Take on the Life of an Empress.......2006-10-01
I liked this book. It was a lot of fun to read it. It is about a girl who will marry the Emperor of Austria and become the Empress. I liked how the book described the complex personality of Elisabeth. She likes animals (especially horses), but she also likes looking beautiful. I found her love for the Emperor believable. It was different from other books in the Royal Diaries series because most of the books gloss over girls wanting to look pretty. However, I thought it could have elaborated on her relationship with her mother more. The length was short, but it shouldn't stop you from reading this interesting book.
Elizabeth.......2006-03-02
This is a very good book. It makes you think twice about wanting to be an Empress, Queen, Princess.....
The Princess Bride.......2005-10-22
I have read this book only once, and will probubly not be reading it again. When i look to read these books, i look for books that are detailed, historicly correct, that are fun to read. Ive never heard of Elisabeth, and i do not think alot of people actually have. Well, heres my review -
Elisabeth is a 16 - year - old, soon to be bride. She is to be married to the 'Emperor'. Elisabeth and the 'Emperor' have absolutly nothing in common, except that the are both 'royalty'. Elisabeth is happy, though miserable, due to the fact that her soon - to - be 'mother - in - law' is an absolutly dreadful, controling person.
Some interesting facts about this book:
- - It says that Elisabeth's mother was setting up a meeting with her SISTER to see if the 'Emperor' is a suited match for Elisabeth, or Vice-Versa. (But that would mean they are cousins! omg!)
- - Elisabeth worries greatly how she looks, and dislikes her teeth because of their yellowish color.
- - Elisabeth had four children with the Emperor, and did not even participate in the naming of her first born! (because of her ignorant mother - in - law)
Overall, this book was decent. Nothing much interesting here, though. Some people may like this, but i did not. I would recomend the Royal Diary of Elizabeth I, it is very interesting, fun, and very historicly correct.
It said in the book that Elisabeth was murdered. I think it said she was 60 when she was murdered.
good, but too short, and not enough detail.......2005-10-22
In this book we learn about Princess Elisabeth getting married to the emperor, and that's it. In the first few pages we find out that she is being forced to attend a ball in hopes that the emperor will fall in love with her sister, the plan backfires and the emperor asks her to marry him instead. The rest of the book is pretty much describing her getting prepared for her wedding.
``Katrina
Book Description
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1. A printed Terran version of the Starfleet Technical Manual was approved by the Federation Council for release to civilians and civilian auxiliaries on your planet. We have reviewed copies of this version as printed by you, and wish to assure you and the others that these copies are precisely correct and complete as authorized. We believe some of your civilians are confused because they are unfamiliar with the system and arrangement of Technical Orders, therefore, we offer the following by way of clarification.
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Live long and prosper.
Customer Reviews:
For original series lovers.......2007-06-27
This book is good only if you love the original series. It is an extrapolation of the original concepts and it is very unique. I already knew this book in a very previous edition and this one lets nothing in debt for the late one. I recommend.
They don't make futures like they used to.......2007-02-03
I had one of these when I was a kid and remember my Mom, seeing my 11-year-old delight at receiving the book, urging my Dad to build me an engineering section (I don't think she realized what it was) ... Dad and I looked at each other and laughed. Sure the book has its "inaccuracies" and sure you can argue about whether it's canon and if so, which parts (and how'd you like to try to dock a starship in one of those spheres at the edge of the spinning Starfleet HQ?) ... but c'mon, it's FUN! As for canon, Trek, like Doyle's Holmes, would build a backstory until it became unwieldy to keep straight or convenient to abandon, and it was still FUN! So pick up this reminder of the days before Trek took itself so seriously. Oh, I also recommend the gloriously "outdated" Spaceflight Chronology with its Sternbach illustrations and since-discarded backstory; it's more (dare I say?) FUN than anything that happened aboard NX-01.
Star Trek Starfleet Technical Manual.......2007-01-12
A wonderful Star Trek fan-fiction writers bible. Everything and anything you wanted to know about Starfleet and the Federation - but was embarrased to ask - is here.
'Bout Time.......2006-11-12
This is it. This is the origional, the one that fueled the imagination of a generation, the one I have referred to since the day it first hit the shelves in the glorious days of yesteryear. Not the namby-pamby next-gen, but the frontier spirited, Great Bird inspired tome that should have been reissued years ago. Now with the 40th anniversary it is the perfect companion to the new 'Ships of the Line' edition.
Not too heavy in the techno-babble that would mark its descendants, the author managed to fill in the gaps left by the nefarious abortive efforts of NBC while leaving enough space for the minds of fans around the world to wiggle in and have fun. Remember fun?
Now, if the Powers-That-Be will reissue Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise all you newbies(whether Trekkie or Trekker you decide) can enjoy the movie-era follow-up to this fine work.
And remember, have fun.
Fun book but Roddenberry didn't think so.......2006-06-24
I have the original hardcover of this book and loved it when I got it.
However, Roddenberry had a fit when he saw the single and triple warp nacelle starships in it. He said there would never be a starship with 3 nacelles. He intended there to be an even number of engines. That is why when he was still alive you never saw odd numbered engined starships in Star Trek. You saw the regular 2 engine ships and Picards 4 engine Stargazer.
Average customer rating:
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Franz Joseph Haydn: Great Man of Music (Rookie Biography)
Carol Greene
Manufacturer: Childrens Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: School & Library Binding
Haydn, Joseph
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ASIN: 0516042602 |
Average customer rating:
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(Joseph) Haydn: A Documentary Study
H. C. Robbins Landon
Manufacturer: Rizzoli International Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Haydn, Joseph
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ASIN: 0847803880 |
Customer Reviews:
Nice Coffee Table Book.......2007-03-15
While not as in-depth as most serious biographies, this book combines a solid overview of Haydn's life with a wonderful selection of photos, paintings, and illustrations of the people and places he knew. In addition, the text features plenty of excerpts from letters and articles written by, to, and about Haydn that really bring his story alive.
There is no musical detail about his works (in other words, don't expect any discussions of theory or examples in notation); it's purely the story of the man. Look elsewhere if your goal is to study the music itself. However, Haydn led a long and interesting enough life to make for good reading on its own.
Note that I cannot comment on this book's scholarship -- it was written around 1980 and may have been superceded by more recent work. It's aimed more at casual readers than at those doing serious research, though, so any minor inaccuracies shouldn't be a problem for the target audience.
Customer Reviews:
A Splendid Memory.......2007-02-09
A marvellous, exciting and extremely well written summary of a major and influential time in Western history.
Hypnotic Portrayal.......2004-09-16
Vienna poised at the end of the 19th century. A striking mix of political ferment, intellectual creativity, gaiety and despair. Resident are an astonishing collection of people whose work would later touch not only Vienna, but resound world-wide: Freud in psychiatry, Mahler in music, Hertzl with the Zionist movement and Klimt in art. And at the center of political and social life of the city is its bright hope for the coming new century - Crown Prince Rudolf. Through 1888 the pace in the city builds to a fever pitch as Vienna begins its season of Carnival.
The other side of Vienna - hopeless poverty. A repressive regime. Catholic Vienna is rich in suicides - more per capita than other European cities. And not just simple suicides, but bizarre suicides staged with flair... The tightrope walker who leapt from a window with a rope attached to his neck, his note explaining "The rope was my life and the rope is my death." Morton tells us "he left a diary which consisted of paper scraps artfully tied together by a miniature rope."
On January 30th, Vienna's bright hope faded when the Crown Prince Rudolf capped the suicide season by killing his mistress, Mary Vetsera, and then himself at his hunting lodge, Mayerling. The hopes for the new century were gone. And then, just four months later, on April 20th, 1889 the harbinger of the new century, Adolf Hitler, was born. And none of us were the same again
Time travel does exist..........2003-12-31
...and it takes the form of Frederic Morton's "A Nervous Splendor." Morton takes the reader on a trip through a long-vanished Vienna -- the Carnival season and the drudgery of day-to-day life in the city's slums; the glory of sun-splashed and colorful parades and the spiritual desperation manifested in a municipal epidemic of suicides; the stullifying atmosphere of the Habsburg court and the creativity of the intellectual/artistic community.
The book is a snapshot of a year in the life of an imperial city as lived by disparate Viennese (including Freud, Klimt, Bruckner, Brahms, as well as Mary Vestera, "The Bird King," and the disturbed Crown Prince Rudolph).
Morton focuses heavily on Rudolph's frustrated life and its bizarre end in the murder/suicide pact with the beautiful socialite, Mary Vestera. Rudolph is a frustrated liberal confined to carrying out increasingly meaningless imperial functions -- making the rounds at receptions, smiling for official portraits, and otherwise participating in the empty pageantry that is life in the Habsburg Court and aristocratic Vienna. His democratic leanings are thwarted by his father, the omnipresent Emperor Franz Joseph, and his father's retinue. To make matters worse, Rudolph is trapped in a loveless marriage. Enter Mary Vestera, the beautiful Baronness who has set her sights on Rudolph. Her slavish devotion to the Crown Prince, and his desperate frustration with life, culminated in a gruesome(and scandalous) end at Rudolph's hunting lodge, Mayerling. The author portrays this sad story as a reflection of the malaise that infected the imperial city as the Austro-Hungarian Empire moved unknowingly toward its own demise.
"A Nervous Splendor" is one of those histories that reads like a novel. Frederic Morton utilizes firsthand accounts, anecdotal stories and wonderfully descriptive writing to bring to life a society long gone.
An engrossing, enticing snapshot.......2003-10-29
The history of Austria from 1848 to about 1945 is an almost endlessly fascinating topic. As Frederic Morton makes clear, many of the strains that wove together to create the modern world -- in science, medicine, politics, and art -- have their roots in this time and place. In choosing just a few months in the period 1888-1889, Morton isolates a time when the cracks in the Habsburg edifice are beginning to show. It's a fascinating portrait that, in the clichéd reviewer's phrase, reads like a novel.
Morton's narrative does require the reader to have a bit of context about Austrian, and broader European, history. But even for the reader without this grounding, there's much here to appreciate. While he does seem to take author's liberties sometimes -- how can we really know all Crown Prince Rudolf was thinking in his final days? -- the image he paints of a crumbling society held together by gilt and glitter is remarkable. So too are the individual portraits: Rudolf, his father the Emperor, Freud, Klimt, Mahler, Brahms, and many more. There were many strains of genius at work in Vienna in 1889, building a new world under the looming threat of the old world's collapse, and Frederic Morton captures them.
The late Austrian author Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn once noted that World Wars I and II could properly be termed the second War of Austrian Succession, and that the most important long-term consequence of the First World War was the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Churchill, too, argued that it was the collapse of the Central European thrones that allowed the "Hitlerite monster" -- an Austrian monster Morton foreshadows in this book -- to crawl to power in the 1930s. In more ways than most of us appreciate, we still live in a world with deep roots in Old Vienna. Frederic Morton's interesting and insightful portrait of a key moment in that city's history illuminates both that era and ours in a fascinating new way. It's a book that will reward more than one reading.
A limited time period, a fascinating history.......2003-03-23
Bob Gore loaned this book to us in response to our plea for information about Austria and Switzerland. I was unsure of its interest for me at first, fearing that it might be little more than a condensed version of the scholarly work that kept popping up on all my book searches called The History of the Hapsburgs from way too long ago until 1918 (I paraphrase from memory). On the other hand, I had to admire an historian who limited himself not only to one city, but to a nine month time period. That's like having a jazz musician limit herself to a ten-second solo.
The limitations paid off, however, mainly because Morton's selection of those few months enable him to cover a highly significant moment of Austrian history, but also to bring in a cast of characters that would normally have been only peripheral to the usual story of history. The reader, thus, gets a sense of not only the political tenor of the times, but also an insight into the medical (through the description of a young Sigmund Freud), the literary (Theodor Herzl and Arthur Schnitzler), the musical (Johannes Brahams and Anton Bruckner), the artistry (Gustav Klimt), and the everyday (a street-player known as the King of Birds). History is not a novel, so these lives do not intertwine as they would in a fiction, but each does bring an expanded understanding of what Vienna was like.
The central "story" to the book is Crown Prince Rudolf and his frustration with being heir to the Austrian empire with nothing to do except ceremonial duties. Morton depicts Rudolf as a freethinker who might have changed the course of history had it not been for Emperor Franz Joseph's wonderful health. Instead, Rudolf, in the course of nine months, goes from being a revolutionary who must have his writing published under someone else's name to a drug-addled conspirator, who, with his nubile, fashion-setting mistress, decides to commit double-suicide. The tragedy is heir-apparent (pause for groans to subside), as Rudolf would have likely been much more palatable to the subjects of Sarajevo than Franz Ferdinand.
I must admit to being fairly ignorant of European history (okay, I was schooled in America--I'm pretty ignorant of history, per se), so when Morton drops the fact halfway through A Nervous Splendor that Rudolf commits suicide, I was surprised. But such is the difference between history and fiction. Morton expects the reader to already be aware of the high points in his narrative, and seeks to illustrate the base of those icebergs (this is also why I don't feel guilty for discussing the suicide myself). He succeeds, and I now am quite interested in his follow-up to this book, a volume called Thunder at Twilight which depicts Austria right before World War I.
Customer Reviews:
Euridite opinionated read.......2007-10-06
3 out of 5. I purchased this book so that I could better appreciate a visit to Austria and I was not disappointed. I recommend for the non-historian, that a less scholarly read is perused first, as this book is chock-full of characters and so broad in scope and rich in description, that it is easy to lose track of people, places, and events. I took notes to better keep track of the lineage of the Hapsburg rulers and my subsequent impressions of them.
B.Wells, Esquire, reviews The Fall of the House of Habsburg.......1997-12-13
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.
Book Description
No ruler in modern times reigned in full sovereignty for as long as Francis Joseph, emperor of Austria and king of Hungary, Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, and Slavonia. Titular master of central Europe from 1848 until 1916, he was center stage in Europe throughout the dramatic era in which Italy and Germany emerged as united nation states. His personal decisions were vital both to the outcome of the Crimean War and to the onset of World War I, sixty years later. Far more than a biography of a great ruler, Twilight of the Habsburgs is a social, cultural, political, and military history of Europe from the end of the Napoleonic era to the assassination at Sarajevo. "Just the right balance between the story of Francis Joseph's life and the history of his times." -- The New York Times Book Review; "Excellent and absorbing . . . A compelling read." -- Evening Standard (London).
Customer Reviews:
Great Reference.......2007-03-26
Not just a well written history, it truely the story of a very large and powerful family.
A tale of a tragic but benevolent ruler........2006-11-22
Prior to reading this book, my knowledge of Emperor Franz Josef was mostly limited to his involvement in World War I: a staunch leader committed to preserving the Old Order whose government ultimately turned the Sarejevo crisis into an international one.
Palmer's book "The Twilight of the Habsburgs: The Life and Times of Emperor Franz Josef" changed my perspective on the Austrian monarch not by painting him as a exceptional or clever leader, which he wasn't; but simply by portraying Franz Josef as a dutiful leader whose reign and personal life was frequently marred by tragedy. Indeed, Franz Josef was keen on his empire's defeat at war at the hands of the French, Italians, and Prussians. As a result, it seems likely he never would have dragged Austria-Hungary into the Great War if it were not for the influence wielded by various ministers on the then-84 year-old emperor. Throughout his life, he was abandoned by a vacationing wife whose life was cut short by an Italian anarchists, his son committed suicide in a mysterious pact, his brother was executed after a failed bid to rule Mexico, and his nephew's assassination in Sarejevo was the saprk that ignited World War I. Indeed, the reader will find out that Franz Josef's personal life was far from a royal fairytale.
Besides the enormous tragedies experienced by Emperor Franz Josef, the changing times surrounding the Emperor's long reign (1848-1916) are nothing short of an exciting setting that may be difficult for us to fathom in the 21st century. At the dawn of Franz Josef's reign, the cavalryman was still prominent on the battlefield, Germany and Italy were mostly collections of squabbling states on his northern and southern border, and the flight of man was limited to a pipe dream. However, by the end of his career, Franz Josef lived in a world where war took to the air and a unified Germany was one of the premeir powers in the world.
The book's only flaw is perhaps more of an annoyance than a serious misgiving: Palmer translates the names of his German subjects to English, hence the reader will constantly see "Francis Joseph" instead of "Franz Josef." Perhaps he did this to appeal to wider audience, but I do beleive that anyone willing to pick up a book on an Austrian emperor is knowledgeable enough to contemplate German names.
Overall, this is an excellent book for those interested in European monarchs, the 1850-1918 time period, or a good biography.
Gently Revisionist.......2004-06-05
Twilight of the Habsburgs is a nice biography of the Emperor Francis Joseph and his times. Francis Joseph ruled the Hapsburg lands from 1848 to 1916. He is usually seen as an obtuse, stubborn old autocrat who refused to change with the times and thus doomed his empire to collapse. Alan Palmer takes a somewhat revisionist view of the Emperor, pointing out that he had a far better mind than he is normally credited with (although handicapped by a very poor education) and was willing to make reforms when necessary (of course he rarely saw the necessity on his own). Even when he did see the need to change, he often waited until it was too late. For example, in mid 1916 he talked of pulling his country out of World War I in the spring of 1917. What if he had gone ahead and made peace in the summer of 1916? Maybe a shorter war, no Russian Revolution, no American intervention, the mind reels with the implications! But unfortunately he put that decision off and died before he could implement it.
The strongest portions of this book deal with Francis Joseph's personal life. I felt sorry for the poor man, dealing in turn with a bossy mother, a flighty wife he loved dearly, a son who wasted his great abilities and committed suicide, and a host of nephews and cousins who couldn't behave themselves and certainly didn't give him the support he needed. His life was full of losses, a brother executed in Mexico, his wife assassinated, his son a suicide, and finally his nephew and heir's murder bringing on a World War. At least he had one friend, an actress he visited for years in a platonic relationship. Its nice to think of him laughing with her over coffee, it must have been the only chance he had to relax!
Francis Joseph was not a brilliant or especially bright, but he did his duty as he saw it and stuck to it right to the end. It is this that makes him admirable today.
Great book!.......2004-01-19
This book is a splendid description of Franz Josefs life. Every ascpect is covered good, and you realy feel that you get a picture of the man and the emperor. I strongly recommend it.
Good book with a major distraction.......2002-04-25
The book is full of information about a very interesting time in history. I didn't mind the jumping around that another reviewer mentioned, but I am COMPLETELY distracted by the author's need to change the names. If you can't handle "Franz Joseph," you should try a little harder. Who is Archduke John? We are lucky he didn't change "Maria Anna" to Maryanne. Dear Author, please give your readers some credit.
Book Description
In 1848 Francis Joseph became King of Hungary and Emperor of Austria. Focusing on the life of Francis Joseph and his family, this book examines their personal relationships against the turbulent background of the decline of had been the most powerful empire in Europe in the 19th century.
Customer Reviews:
Item not received.......2007-03-08
I cannot write a review as I have not received my order yet. the order was shipped on january 30, with estimate arrival date March 08. My tracking number is GM01088134011894499. I tried your link WHERES MY STUFF but got nowhere.My credit card has alçready been charged with this item.Please advise if another arrival estimate. Thnk you
emperor francis joseph.......2007-01-11
have actually not been able to start reading but know by title, will be great. thanks.
Fascinating Read.......2006-12-10
Wonderful telling of the life of the last true Habsburg emperor. Although the author allows you to be sympathetic to Francis Joseph, he makes no excuses for his shortcomings as emperor as well. I bought this book as a guide for an upcoming trip to Austria and eastern Europe. It not only made me look forward to my trip but with the historical events that I got from this book in mind, I had a deeper perspective of the many sights that I visited on my trip. An fascinating read.
Ripples of an Empire.......2006-03-13
I found this novel to be an accurate novel of the last 100 years of the Hapsburg Dynasty and their trials, family sorrows and the effects of their autocratic power upon the people they governed throughout the late 19th and early 20th century. While i believe at times the Emperor felt he was ruling in the best interests of his loyal subjects that remains to be seen in the last part of the 19th century and of course leading up to that fateful day in June at Sarajavo when Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were murdered by an Anachists Bomb and set the tone for the debacle of World War I which of course destroyed the last remaining vestiges of European Autocracy and Dynastic inheritance. While i do favor people having a say in how they are governed it seems that when the monachy is overthrown as in Imperial Russia; the individuals that take over the rule are far worse than their "Annointed Predecessors" . After all the gulags of Josef Stalin were far worse than any "fortress" of the Tsars.
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