A political, cultural, and socioeconomic history of the Habsburg empire, discussing the rise of Habsburg power, its subsequent status and action as a great power, and its dissolution.

A EuropeNow Editor’s Pick A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year “Pieter M. Judson’s 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 that...the 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 “Judson’s 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

"A feat of both scholarship and storytelling" (Wall Street Journal)--the definitive history of a powerful family dynasty who dominated Europe for centuries. In The Habsburgs, Martyn Rady tells the epic story of a dynasty and the world it built--and then lost--over nearly a millennium. From modest origins, the Habsburgs gained control of the Holy Roman Empire in the fifteenth century. Then, in a few decades, their possessions rapidly expanded to take in a large part of Europe, stretching from Hungary to Spain, and parts of the New World and the Far East. The Habsburgs dominated Central Europe through the First World War. Historians often depict the Habsburgs as leaders of a ramshackle empire. But Rady reveals their enduring power, driven by the belief that they were destined to rule the world as defenders of the Roman Catholic Church, guarantors of peace, and patrons of learning. This is the remarkable history of a dynasty that forever changed Europe and the world.

The Habsburg Empire's grand strategy for outmaneuvering and outlasting stronger rivals in a complicated geopolitical world The Empire of Habsburg Austria faced more enemies than any other European great power. Flanked on four sides by rivals, it possessed few of the advantages that explain successful empires. Yet somehow Austria endured, outlasting Ottoman sieges, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon. A. Wess Mitchell tells the story of how this cash-strapped, polyglot empire survived for centuries in Europe's most dangerous neighborhood without succumbing to the pressures of multisided warfare. He shows how the Habsburgs played the long game in geopolitics, corralling friend and foe alike into voluntarily managing the empire's lengthy frontiers and extending a benign hegemony across the turbulent lands of middle Europe. The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire offers lessons on how to navigate a messy geopolitical map, stand firm without the advantage of military predominance, and prevail against multiple rivals.

A History of Eastern Europe: Crisis and Change is a wide-ranging single volume history of the "lands between", the lands which have lain between Germany, Italy, and the Tsarist and Soviet empires. Bideleux and Jeffries examine the problems that have bedevilled this troubled region during its imperial past, the interwar period, under fascism, under communism, and since 1989. While mainly focusing on the modern era and on the effects of ethnic nationalism, fascism and communism, the book also offers original, striking and revisionist coverage of: * ancient and medieval times * the Hussite Revolution, the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation * the legacies of Byzantium, the Ottoman Empire and the Hapsburg Empire * the rise and decline of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth * the impact of the region's powerful Russian and Germanic neighbours * rival concepts of "Central" and "Eastern" Europe * the 1920s land reforms and the 1930s Depression. Providing a thematic historical survey and analysis of the formative processes of change which have played the paramount roles in shaping the development of the region, A History of Eastern Europe itself will play a paramount role in the studies of European historians.

The first part of a two-volume history of the Habsburg Empire from its medieval origins to its dismemberment in the First World War. This important volume (which is self-contained) meets a long-felt need for a systematic survey in English of the Habsburgs and their lands in the late medieval and early modern periods. It is primarily concerned with the Habsburg territories in central and northern Europe, but the history of the Spanish Habsburgs in Spain and the Netherlands is also covered. The book, like the Habsburgs themselves, deals with an immense range of lands and peoples: clear, balanced, and authoritative, it is a remarkable feat of synthethis and exposition.