A comprehensive and, at times, lively chronicle, but not for casual readers with no prior knowledge of European history.
A sweeping chronicle of the rise and fall of the Habsburg dynasty.
In this ambitious overview, Rady, a professor of Central European history and author of The Habsburg Empire: A Very Short Introduction (2017), delivers a mostly chronological journey through the Habsburg dynasty from the 13th to the 20th centuries while contextualizing the times in which it flourished and, eventually, faded. Because the empire over which the Habsburgs reigned was enormous (“the Habsburgs were the first rulers whose power encompassed the world”), nonacademic readers may find it difficult to keep track of all the names and dates. Nevertheless, Rady valiantly attempts to give the principals some distinct accomplishments and traits: Maximilian (1459-1519), a self-promoter “who oversaw the composition of three allegorical autobiographies in which he depicted himself as the most chivalric and accomplished of knights,” brought Spain into the empire. Charles V, Maximilian’s grandson, attempted to outlaw Protestantism and eventually conceded that the Spanish Habsburgs would be split off from the Austrian Habsburgs and ruled respectively by his son Philip and brother Ferdinand while he retired to a monastery. Rudolph (1552-1612), a great art collector, employed Johannes Kepler as his astrologer, and Maria Theresa (1717-1780) instituted schooling for all children, frowned upon alchemy, and banned vampirism, which fascinated the media at the time: There were stories of “the undead feasting on the living, of exhumed bodies oozing with the blood of victims, and of stakings and beheadings.” Franz Joseph, whose nephew and heir would be assassinated in 1914, ruled for almost 70 years and created the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Though Rady is quick to acknowledge the Habsburgs’ missteps and weaknesses, he concludes that “their legacy survives…as a vision that combined power, destiny, and knowledge, and blended earthly and heavenly realms in a universal enterprise that touched every aspect of humanity’s temporal and spiritual experience.”
A comprehensive and, at times, lively chronicle, but not for casual readers with no prior knowledge of European history.Pub Date: May 12, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5416-4450-2
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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