Danubia: A Personal History of Habsburg Europe

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ISBN
9780330522793
 
Danubia is the brilliant and entertaining companion to the Sunday Times top ten bestseller Germania. It was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2013.
For centuries much of Europe was in the hands of the very peculiar Habsburg family. An unstable mixture of wizards, obsessives, melancholics, bores, musicians and warriors, they saw off - through luck, guile and sheer mulishness - any number of rivals, until finally packing up in 1918. From their principal lairs along the Danube they ruled most of Central Europe and Germany and interfered everywhere - indeed the history of Europe hardly makes sense without them. Simon Winder's extremely funny new book plunges the reader into a maelstrom of alchemy, skeletons, jewels, bear-moats, unfortunate marriages and a guinea-pig village. Danubia is full of music, piracy, religion and fighting. It is the history of a dynasty, but it is at least as much about the people they ruled, who spoke many different languages, lived in a vast range of landscapes, believed in many rival gods and often showed a marked ingratitude towards their oddball ruler in Vienna. Readers who discovered Simon Winder's genius for telling wonderful stories of middle Europe with Germania will be delighted by the eccentric and fascinating stories of the Habsburgs and their world.
Danubia was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2013.
More Information
Weight 0.408000
Author Winder, Simon
Availability IP
Department Travel Writing
Edition Main market ed
Format Paperback
ISBN 9780330522793
Pages 464
Published 19/06/2014
Publisher Pan Books
Section Travel Writing: General
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