# Recommend a good book on the Austrian Empire **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 31, 2013, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-good-book-on-the-austrian-empire/667637 "2013-08-31T04:00:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2013, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-good-book-on-the-austrian-empire/667637/1 "2013-08-31T04:00:53Z")
I love Vienna and its prodigious history and I’d like to learn more so I’m looking for a readable history of Austria. Given the history of Europe I know that the “start” of Austria is amorphous and could be said to start within a 600 year period thus I don’t have an exact idea where I want it to begin; readability and interesting are much more important. Any ideas? ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2013, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-good-book-on-the-austrian-empire/667637/2 "2013-08-31T05:00:28Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > I love Vienna and its prodigious history and I’d like to learn more so I’m looking for a readable history of Austria. Given the history of Europe I know that the “start” of Austria is amorphous and could be said to start within a 600 year period thus I don’t have an exact idea where I want it to begin; readability and interesting are much more important. Any ideas? Tough, if you don’t read German. The Habsburgs first came to prominence in 1273 when [Rudolf I](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolph_I_of_Germany) became Holy Roman Emperor as a bit of a compromise candidate ( the Wittlesbachs looked a little too powerful to the Pope, then Premyslids were too Czech, other too weak ). He was the one who acquired Austria ( [not entirely legally](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privilegium_Minus) ) - the original power base of the family was in southern Alsace and adjoining lands in what would become Switzerland. The issue is is that there are no good survey books in English about the medieval Habsburgs that I know of. Just about all of the English-language histories about the family start in the late Renaissance at best and a lot of them in the early modern period around the Thirty Years War or later. Which skips out on a few centuries of rather interesting and complicated history. The few survey books I have read in that vein are…okay. But honestly not all that great - I don’t think I’d recommend any of them unless you were a fanatic on the topic. The best books related to the Habsburgs I have come across have been on fairly specific topics like the War of Austrian Succession. Though it is superficial in places and a little tedious, browsing through wikipedia might be the best way to catch up with the earlier dukes and emperors. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2013, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-good-book-on-the-austrian-empire/667637/3 "2013-08-31T05:09:26Z")
All I can offer is an anti-recommendation. I tried getting through _A History of the Habsburg Empire, 1526-1918_ one time but, quite frankly, Robert Kann is a not a great writer. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2013, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-good-book-on-the-austrian-empire/667637/4 "2013-08-31T05:15:10Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > All I can offer is an anti-recommendation. I tried getting through _A History of the Habsburg Empire, 1526-1918_ one time but, quite frankly, Robert Kann is a not a great writer. Concur. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2013, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-good-book-on-the-austrian-empire/667637/5 "2013-08-31T17:06:46Z")
Thanks for the insight. I’m not surprised–I’ve been casually looking for a good book and haven’t found one. Maybe I should start a Kickstarting campaign to get McCullough to write one. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2013, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-good-book-on-the-austrian-empire/667637/6 "2013-08-31T18:25:59Z")
Not heavy scholarship, but [John Biggins’](http://www.johnbigginsfiction.com/prohaska) adventure novels set in the Austro-Hungarian navy were a lot of fun to read, with interesting historical nuggets throughout. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-good-book-on-the-austrian-empire/667637/7 "2013-09-01T00:09:36Z")
For the last period, the fictive works of Joseph Roth may give a flavour. A devout, and melancholy, monarchist and drunk, he was visited by the young Otto, heir to the Reich, who sympathetically gave him an imperial order to quit drinking to save his life. Which he did, according to legend. And then he died. _All blessings are doubtful_ as Saki pointed out.