some austria books

Behrend, Ivan T. Decades of Crisis: Central and Eastern Europe before World War II. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.

The definitive survey of the region’s political, social, and economic development between the world wars.

Bradley, John F. N. The Czechoslovak Legion in Russia, 1914–1920. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1991.

Slim but useful volume, one of the few in English to tell the remarkable story of the Legion, which emerged from the chaos of the eastern front and revolutionary Russia to become part of the army of independent Czechoslovakia.

Cornwall, Mark. The Undermining of Austria-Hungary: The Battle for Hearts and Minds. New York: St. Martin’s, 2000.

Comprehensive and persuasive account of both Allied efforts to use nationalist propaganda against the Hapsburg military and attempts by the government in Vienna to counter that threat.

Deák, István. Beyond Nationalism: A Social and Political History of the Habsburg Officer Corps, 1848–1918. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

A classic of social history, this impressive study includes an examination of the postwar careers of Hapsburg-era officers in the successor states.

Healy, Maureen. Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I. Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Excellent study of life on the home front, arguing that grievances in the empire’s most important urban center made the city essentially ungovernable even before the military collapsed.

Herwig, Holger H. The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary, 1914–1918. Modern Wars. London and New York: Arnold, 1997.

Useful and clearly written study of the military partnership between these two empires. Herwig offers a coherent and readable argument for the failure of that alliance and its impact on subsequent developments in Central Europe.
Kann, Robert A. 1974. A history of the Habsburg Empire, 1526–1918. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.

Kann was born in Vienna and worked as a jurist until the Nazi Anschluss, when he was forced to emigrate. In the United States he became a leading historian of the HabsburgEmpire. Here and in his two-volume The Multinational Empire (1950), Kann emphasized conquest, conflict, and institution building in the empire’s far-flung territories.
Lieven, D. C. B. 2000. Empire: The Russian Empire and its rivals. London: John Murray.

A comprehensive “comparative and entangled” history of the concepts and realities of empire in the Roman, Chinese, American, British, Ottoman, and Habsburg empires. The first part of the book focuses on Russian imperial expansion from 1551 through 1914. The author then compares the Soviet Union to the British, Ottoman and Habsburgempires and their aftermaths. The book contains an excellent annotated bibliography for empire studies.
Roth, Joseph. 2003. The Radetzky march. Translated by Michael Hofmann. London: Granta.

Originally published in 1932. Roth was born in Brody, a sizable Jewish town formerly located in the easternmost reaches of the Dual Monarchy. The Radetzky March, his most famous novel, is a sweeping, melancholy evocation of the inexorable demise of this once great empire.
Sosin, Jack M. “Louisbourg and the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748.” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 14 (1957): 516–535.
Maurice of Saxony was astonished that France would hand over the Austrian Netherlands to regain Louisbourg. Many latter-day observers have shared his puzzlement. Sosin explains the importance of the citadel. DOI: 10.2307/1918519

Parker, Geoffrey. The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

A good introduction to the contested question of whether the changes in the character of warfare in the century before the War of the Austrian Succession constituted something close to a revolutionary overturning of older ways. Originally published in 1988.
Chandler, David. The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough. 2d ed. Tunbridge Wells, UK: Spellmount, 1990.

A good survey of the strategies, tactics, weapons, and organizational skills that nations used during the era of the War of the Austrian Succession. Its schematized charts are useful. Originally published 1976 (London: B. T. Batsford).

Childs, John. Armies and Warfare in Europe, 1648–1789. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1982.

Childs’s broad goal is to situate 18th-century warfare between the mercenary and irregularly controlled armies of the Thirty Years War and the sprawling armies of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. This is a splendid overview of the trends at play when war broke out in 1740.

Duffy, Christopher. The Military Experience in the Age of Reason. New York: Atheneum, 1988.

Using an extensive array of contemporary diaries, reports, and memoirs, Duffy lets the participants in the wars of the era speak for themselves.
Duffy, Christopher. Wild Goose and the Eagle: A Life of Marshal von Browne, 1705–1757. London: Chatto and Windus, 1967.

An instructive biography that sheds light on the nature of warfare in the 18th century. Provides a detailed account of Browne’s campaigns in 1756–1757.

Duffy, Christopher. The Austrian Army in the Seven Years’ War. 2 vols. London: Emperor’s Press, 1999–2008.

The first volume is an analytical study of the military forces of Maria Theresa (and supersedes his earlier The Army of Maria Theresa). The second volume is an erudite narrative campaign history of that army in the Seven Years’ War. Both are grounded in a wide range of primary sources. This work serves as the starting point for further investigation by scholars.
Wilson, Peter. German Armies: War and German Politics, 1648–1806. London: UCL Press, 1998.
Examines the Holy Roman Empire’s military system and the relationship between politics and war in the 18th century. Concludes the empire survived because it welded a collective defense structure that was cooperative and defensive. This structure was upended by the Seven Years’ War. DOI: 10.4324/9780203499146

St. Paul, Horace. A Journal of the First Two Campaigns of the Seven Years’ War. Edited by George Grey Butler. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1914.

St. Paul, an Englishman, joined the Austrian army as a cavalry officer and fought in nearly all the major battles of the war with Prussia. Includes more than sixty maps and orders of battle. Written in French.

Frederick II. “History of the Seven Years War.” In Posthumous Works of Frederic II, King of Prussia. Translated by Thomas Holcroft. London: G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1789.

Written for his successors, Frederick’s account is generally forthright if not unbiased. Should be used as a quasi-primary source, but should also be checked against other sources. Frederick shows an appreciation for the global nature of the war and provides useful data on the war’s toll on Prussia and Austria.

Lloyd, Henry Humphrey Evans. “The History of the Late War in Germany between the King of Prussia, and the Empress of Austria and Her Allies.” In War, Society and Enlightenment: The Works of General Lloyd. 2 vols. Edited by Patrick Speelman, 1–184, 535–738. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2005.

Lloyd’s narrative of the German war is the first analytical study and should be noted for his extensive use of primary accounts (although mostly unattributed) and his critical interpretation of Frederick’s methods, which explain its being published anonymously in 1766. The second volume was published posthumously in 1790 from Lloyd’s manuscripts.

Tielke, Johann Gottlieb. An Account of Some of the Most Remarkable Events of the War between the Prussians, Austrians, and Russians, from 1756 to 1763. 2 vols. Translated by Charles Craufurd and Robert Craufurd. London: Printed for the translators, and sold by J. Walter, 1787–1788.

Tielke was a Saxon officer who had fought against Prussia. It was first published in six volumes (1775–1786). The first volume covers the battle of Maxen and includes a treatise on attacking and defending fortified sites. The second volume covers the campaign of 1758. The final four volumes in German were not translated into English.
Butterfield, Herbert. Reconstruction of an Historical Episode: The History of the Enquiry into the Origins of the Seven Years’ War. Glasgow: Jackson, 1951.

Argues that Russia, not Prussia or revenge-driven Austria, was to blame for the outbreak of the war.
Horn, David Bayne. “The Duke of Newcastle and the Origins of the Diplomatic Revolution.” In The Diversity of History: Essays in Honour of Sir Herbert Butterfield. Edited by J. H. Elliot and H. G. Koenigsberger, 247–268. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1970.

Argues that Newcastle sought to keep the old alliance with Austria and was unaware of Kaunitz’s goal to ally with France and that his policy for the imperial election plan posed a significant problem for Kaunitz, who dared not accept it lest he anger France, a newly desired ally.

Kaplan, Herbert. Russia and the Outbreak of the Seven Years’ War. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1968.

Argues that Elizabeth’s anti-Prussian policies and desires for territorial expansion are to blame for the outbreak of the war in Europe in 1756. Well grounded in Russian, Prussian, British, and Austrian sources.
Szabo, Franz A. J. The Seven Years’ War in Europe 1756–1763. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2008.

A thorough analysis of the military campaigns in central Europe that synthesizes both primary and secondary sources, especially Austrian. This is the best recent book on the European war. Readers should note an overt anti-Prussian tone.


Bérenger, Jean. A History of the Habsburg Empire, 1273–1700. 2 vols. Translated by C. A. Simpson. London: Longman, 1994.

Sound introductory history, both of Habsburg political and administrative change and of the international history of Eastern and Central Europe. Excellent maps and genealogical tables.

Bridge, F. R. From Sadowa to Sarajevo: The Foreign Policy of Austria-Hungary 1860–1914. Foreign Policies of the Great Powers. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972.

Balanced assessment of foreign policy in the last half century of Habsburg decline.

Fichtner, Paula Sutter. The Habsburg Empire. From Dynasticism to Multinationalism. Malabar, FL: Krieger, 1997.

Introductory survey from the 13th to the 20th century, fully half the book is a collection of documents.

Jelavich, Barbara. The Habsburg Empire in European Affairs, 1814–1918. Rand Mcnally European History Series. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1969.

Mandatory reading on the last century of Habsburg power, its social and political setting, in a lucid 170 pages.

Kann, Robert. The Multinational Empire: Nationalism and National Reform in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1848–1918. 2 vols. New York: Octagon, 1983.

Landmark work on Central European nationalism and the forlorn Habsburg struggle to contain it. Originally published in 1950 (New York: Columbia University Press).

Macartney, C. A. The Habsburg Empire, 1790–1918. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971.

A narrative of decline, sound as a record of events yet weak on explanation.

Worthington, David. Scots in Habsburg Service, 1618–1648. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill, 2004.

An examination of broader Scottish-Habsburg relations throughout the Thirty Years War, including diplomatic relations and migration. Worthington examines military service in both the Austrian and Spanish branches of the Habsburg Empire, using extensive primary source material. The book provides a useful map through an incredibly complex geopolitical space.

Stradling, R. A. The Spanish Monarchy and Irish Mercenaries: The Wild Geese in Spain, 1618–68. Dublin, UK: Irish Academic, 1994.

Considers the role of Irish mercenaries with the Spanish Habsburgs, who were facing recruitment difficulties after the 1630s. The vacuum was easily filled by poor Irishmen, who were emigrating in large numbers. Considers religious and cultural links between Irish soldiers and their Spanish employers, links that the author describes as “umbilical.”
Frey, Linda, and Marsha Frey. A Question of Empire: Leopold I and the War of Spanish Succession, 1701–1705. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1983.

Based on archives in multiple countries, this short monograph narrates Leopold’s view of the Spanish succession issue, emphasizing his pragmatic statesmanship that shifted Habsburg attention away from the Holy Roman Empire and toward Italy.
Ingrao, Charles W. In Quest and Crisis: Emperor Joseph I and the HabsburgMonarchy. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1979.

Uses Austrian archives to narrate the Habsburg war effort under Joseph (1705–1711). Describes how Joseph I’s reforms strengthened Habsburg control over Italy and Hungary, creating a multiethnic state that would last into the 20th century.
Spielman, John P. Leopold I of Austria. Men in Office. London: Thames and Hudson, 1977.

Chronological narrative of Leopold’s reign (to his death in 1705), detailing the politics at the court of Vienna and Austria’s diplomatic maneuvers against Turkish and Bourbon threats. Chapters 16–19 deal with the War of the Spanish Succession.
Symcox, Geoffrey. “Britain and Victor Amadeus II: Or, the Use and Abuse of Allies.” In England’s Rise to Greatness, 1660–1763. Edited by Stephen B. Baxter, 151–184. Publications from the Clark Library Professorship, University of California, Los Angeles. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.

Outlines England’s religious, commercial, and strategic interests in the Mediterranean. Uses published sources to illustrate how Britain used Savoy to extend Mediterranean trade and counterbalance French and Austrian influence, whereas Savoy used British funds for territorial expansion.
Slottman, William B. Ferenc II Rákóczi and the Great Powers. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1997.

Posthumous publication of the author’s work on the European context of the Hungarian Rákóczi rebellion. Narrative ranges from the Treaty of Carlowitz (1699) through Utrecht (1713–1714). Emphasizes the wide-ranging diplomatic contacts of the rebels.
Frey, Linda, and Marsha Frey. Societies in Upheaval: Insurrections in France, Hungary, and Spain in the Early 18th Century. Contributions to the Study of World History. New York: Greenwood, 1987.

Succinct comparative history of three revolts during the War of the Spanish Succession, emphasizing the importance of religious and regional anticentralizing motivations. Warns of the dangers of naively applying social scientific theories without paying attention to the contextual details of each case.

Kamen, Henry. The War of Succession in Spain, 1700–15. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969.

Analytical work that focuses on the growing strength of the Crown as well as the economic and social effects of the war in Spain. Argues that the war had a relatively limited impact on the economy and its population and in fact led to Spanish resurgence in the 18th century.
Luard, Evan. The Balance of Power: The System of International Relations, 1648–1815. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1992.

Solid study on the development of the European state system, from the Peace of Westphalia to the Treaty of Vienna in 1815. Does not deal with the notion of a Westphalian system but is a good alternative reading of events, even if Luard overstresses the idea of sovereignty in the Peace of Westphalia.

Nexon, Daniel H. The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change. Princeton Studies in International History and Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.
Interesting overview of the early modern states system, with a focus on dynasty and religion that explains the Peace of Westphalia better than do the categories “nation” and “state.” Nexon’s view is based on early-21st-century international research, but he mostly ignores non-English publications and misses important points. Sometimes too unidimensional and from a political-science viewpoint. DOI: 10.1515/9781400830800

Osiander, Andreas. The States System of Europe, 1640–1990: Peacemaking and the Conditions of International Stability. Oxford: Clarendon, 1994. Tries to explain the modern state system and peacemaking through four case studies, beginning with the Peace of Westphalia. This ambitious and simplifying concept is based on a limited but solid choice of research. Helps show the Peace of Westphalia’s place in the development of the international system and peacemaking process but is also suitable for getting a first look at the Peace of Westphalia. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198278870.001.0001


Teschke, Benno. The Myth of 1648: Class, Geopolitics, and the Making of Modern International Relations. London and New York: Verso, 2003.

The most comprehensive argument against the view that the Peace of Westphalia was a crucial turning point in international relations. The study is criticized, however, for its very theoretical approach and for replacing one problematic model with another.

Kaufmann, Thomas DaCosta. Court, Cloister, and City: The Art and Culture of Central Europe, 1450 –1800. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

A detailed recent overview of Central European art in all its complexity, with chapters 13 through 18 (pp. 307–459) devoted to the 18th century. Covers Germany, Poland, Austria, Bohemia, Slovakia, Hungary, and extends eastward into Ukraine and western Russia.

Kaufmann, Thomas DaCosta. Painterly Enlightenment: The Art of Franz Anton Maulbertsch, 1724–1796. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.

A short monograph on the “strangeling” painter of 18th-century Austria, linking his art to the ideas of Winckelmann and other Enlightenment art theorists.

Yonan, Michael. Empress Maria Theresa and the Politics of Habsburg Imperial Art. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011.

Treats the art and architecture commissioned by and for the Habsburg Empress, concentrating on spaces at Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna. Argues that rococo design enabled the conveyance of subtle messages about female monarchical authority.

Potter, David. Henry VIII and Francis I: The Final Conflict, 1540–1547. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2011.

This book explores the neglected subject of the final war between Francis I and Henry VIII (1543–1546). Placing it firmly in the context of the great Habsburg-Valois duel, it draws on original sources in several languages. Maps, plans, and illustrations are included.

Evans, Robert. “Calvinism in East-Central Europe.” In International Calvinism, 1541–1715. Edited by Menna Prestwich, 167–197. Oxford: Clarendon, 1985.

This article discusses how Calvinism spread to central Europe during the middle decades of the 16th century. It provides an authoritative account of the subject by the leading scholar on the Habsburg monarchy during the early modern period.
Dotson, Esther Gordon. J. B. Fischer von Erlach: Architecture as Theater in the Baroque Era. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012.

A general introduction to Fischer’s major architectural works in Vienna and Salzburg and a proper inroad to the extensive specialized literature on him. Pays particular attention to how Fischer’s buildings work within the urban spaces for which they were designed. With photographs by Mark Richard Ashton.
Hitchcock, Henry-Russell. German Rococo: The Zimmermann Brothers. Baltimore: Penguin, 1968a.

A parallel volume to Hitchcock’s Phaidon volume, this book offers a similarly stylistically themed discussion of the Zimmermann brothers and their major works, including the Wieskirche Pilgrimage Church of the Scourged Savior.
Karner, Herbert. “The Habsburg Country Residences around Vienna in the Seventeenth Century and their Relationship to the Hofburg Palace.” In The Baroque Villa: Suburban and Country Residences c. 1600–1800. Edited by Barbara Arciszewska, 187–196. Warsaw: Wilanow Palace Museum, 2009.

This Austrian scholar focuses on Habsburg residences around Vienna built after 1600, dealing especially with their role in court life and the ceremonial use of the palaces. He concentrates on the broad period from the rule of Ferdinad I to Leopold I.
Scott, Hamish M. The Birth of a Great Power System, 1740–1815. Harlow, UK: Pearson/Longman, 2006.

The continuation of a classic text on European state activity, this volume examines international relations/tensions and their effect on the major states. Aimed as a student textbook, this book nevertheless represents a nuanced synthesis of a highly complicated era in European history.

Storrs, Christopher, ed. The Fiscal-Military State in Eighteenth-Century Europe: Essays in Honour of P. G. M. Dickson. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2009.

As well as an introductory overview, and the context of international rivalry (by Hamish Scott), also included are essays on Austria, Prussia, Russia, France, and Savoy/Sardinia.

Tilly, Charles, ed. The Formation of National States in Western Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975.

A historical sociologist’s study that is comparative and stresses state formation rather than (the more conscious and planned) state-building.
Deák, István. Beyond Nationalism: Social and Political History of the HabsburgOfficer Corps, 1848–1918. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Considers the role of the Habsburg officer corps in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and concludes that officers remained loyal to the dynasty long after most other institutions had become indifferent or had begun to pursue autonomous goals.
Horne, John, ed. State, Society and Mobilization in Europe During the First World War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Examines the process of political and cultural mobilization during World War I in Germany, Britain, France, Italy, and Austria-Hungary. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511562891
Fichtner, Paula Sutter. Terror and Toleration: The Habsburg Empire Confronts Islam, 1526–1826. London: Reaktion, 2008.

A study of the historical origins of hateful images about Muslims and Turks among 16th- and 17th-century Christians. Emphasizes war between the Ottoman and HabsburgEmpires and the Habsburg propaganda used to justify it. Also looks at the Enlightenment-era developments that led to the decline of this discourse.

Brightwell, Peter. “Spain and Bohemia: The Decision to Intervene, 1619.” European Studies Review 12 (1982): 117–141.

A reimagining of Brightwell 1979 now focuses on the Spanish Habsburg decision to support their Austrian cousins against the Bohemian rebels, thus internationalizing the conflict that would come to be known as the Thirty Years War.

Sánchez, Magdalena S. “A House Divided: Spain, Austria, and the Bohemian and Hungarian Successions.” Sixteenth Century Journal 25.4 (1994): 887–903.

An account of the difficult and complicated diplomacy between Philip III of Spain and Ferdinand of Styria (later Ferdinand II) in reference to the disputed succession of Bohemia and Hungary in the period of 1612–1617 that led to the Bohemian Revolt and the beginning of the Thirty Years War.
Brnardic, Vladimir. Imperial Armies of the Thirty Years’ War. Vol. 1, Infantry and Artillery. Oxford: Osprey, 2009.

Description of the imperial Habsburg infantry of the Thirty Years War: its organization, uniforms, weapons, and formations.

Brnardic, Vladimir. Imperial Armies of the Thirty Years’ War. Vol. 2, Cavalry. Oxford: Osprey, 2010.

An account of the weapons, uniforms, and tactics employed by the imperial Habsburgcavalry during the Thirty Years War.
Sutherland, N. M. “The Origins of the Thirty Years War and the Structure of European Politics.” English Historical Review 107 (1992): 587–625.

A part of the “international” interpretation of the war that sees the thirty-year struggle as just one phase of a longer conflict—lasting about three centuries—between the houses of France and Habsburg.
Brightwell, Peter. “The Spanish Origins of the Thirty Years’ War.” European Studies Review 9 (1979): 409–431.

An analysis of the dynastic policies of the Spanish Habsburgs and their influence on the beginnings of the Thirty Years War.

Brightwell, Peter. “Spain and Bohemia: The Decision to Intervene, 1619.” European Studies Review 12 (1982): 117–141.

A reimagining of Brightwell 1979 now focuses on the Spanish Habsburg decision to support their Austrian cousins against the Bohemian rebels, thus internationalizing the conflict that would come to be known as the Thirty Years War.
Croxton, Derek. “A Territorial Imperative? The Military Revolution, Strategy and Peacemaking in the Thirty Years War.” War in History 5 (1998): 253–279.

An attempt to add a strategic dimension to the continuing talk of a military revolution in the early 17th century. Croxton believes developments in the strategic thinking of major combatants—in this case the Habsburgs—should be seen side by side with developments in battlefield tactics and the abilities of states to raise bigger and bigger armies.
Bireley, Robert. “The Peace of Prague (1635) and the Counter Reformation in Germany.” Journal of Modern History 48.1 (1976): 31–70.

A thoroughly researched account chronicling the in-depth negotiations surrounding the 1635 Peace of Prague and the aspects of the deliberations that eventually led to political considerations trumping the religious ones.

Bireley, Robert. Religion and Politics in the Age of the Counterreformation: Emperor Ferdinand II, William Lamormaini, S. J., and the Formation of Imperial Policy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1981.

The book analyzes the relationship between Emperor Ferdinand II and his Jesuit confessor and claims that religious questions were of primary importance in formulating the imperial policy.

Bireley, Robert. The Jesuits and the Thirty Years War: Kings, Courts and Confessors. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

An in-depth analysis of the role, strategy, and influence the Society of Jesus wielded during the Thirty Years War, with a special focus on Jesuit work in the Catholic capitals of Munich, Vienna, and Madrid. The book points to a general reorientation of the order’s capabilities and mission due to a lessening of the confessional dimension of the conflict as it developed into a political struggle.
Barker, Thomas M. The Military Intellectual and Battle: Raimondo Montecuccoli and the Thirty Years’ War. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975.

A fine introduction to an important but often forgotten or minimized figure from the later stages of the Thirty Years War—the Italian-born imperial general Montecuccoli—combines both his life story and an English translation of some of his important writings on the art of war.
Roberts, Keith. Pike and Shot Tactics 1590–1660. Oxford: Osprey, 2010.

A synthesis of research analyzing the prevalent battle tactics employed by both the imperialists and their Protestant (and Catholic) adversaries during the Thirty Years War.
Jardine, Lisa, and Jerry Brotton. Global Interests: Renaissance Art between East and West. Picturing History. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000.

Investigates mutual cultural influences between the Ottoman Empire and the HabsburgEmpire of Charles V, in three areas infrequently considered: portrait medals, tapestries, and equestrian art. Interweaving the entire account between East and West, the book proposes “a new kind of ‘cultural history,’ unrestricted by nation or moment” (p. 7). The authors creatively explore Europe’s cultural and aesthetic self-definition between 1450 and 1550 to reassess conventional notions of Renaissance art.


Blaeu, Joan. Atlas Maior of 1665. 6 vols. (bound in 8 parts). Cologne: Taschen, 2006a.

A reedition of Blaeu’s original, based on the copy in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, with selected original texts by Blaeu. Large-scale folio reproduction with color illustrations and color maps. Introduction and texts by Peter van der Krogt. Text in French, English, and German (in that order); translated from the Dutch.

Blaeu, Joan. Atlas Maior: “The Greatest and Finest Atlas Ever Published.” New York: Barnes and Noble, 2006b.

In one massive, full-color volume, based on the copy in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna; with a selection of original texts by Joan Blaeu; directed and produced by Benedikt Taschen. Introduction and texts by Peter van der Krogt. Published by arrangement with Taschen Text in English, German, and French (in that order); translated from the Dutch.

Jardine, Lisa. Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance. New York: Nan A. Talese, 1996.

Jardine makes the case that the cultural engine of Renaissance Europe was fueled less by a quest for knowledge than by politically strategic conspicuous consumption, inspired ultimately by the Islamic Ottoman Empire. Competition for trade centers around the globe is thus intimately implicated in this commercial drive. Interweaves art history, economic history, and the global concerns of the Early Modern period that engaged both. Reprint: New York: W. W. Norton, 1998.
Kern, Edmund. “Confessional Identity and Magic in the Late Sixteenth Century: Jakob Bithner and Witchcraft in Styria.” Sixteenth Century Journal 25.2 (1994): 323–340. Drawn from his dissertation on the Styrian witch hunts, Kern explores how confessional identity and conflict were interwoven with the growing demands to prosecute witchcraft. DOI: 10.2307/2542884

Dillinger, Johannes. Evil People: A Comparative Study of Witch Hunts in Swabian Austria and the Electorate of Trier. Edited by H. C. Erik Midelfort and translated by Laura Stokes. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009.

Published originally in German in 1999, Dillinger’s book compares witchcraft persecutions in the territories of Swabian Austria and the Electorate of Trier. At least 531 executions took place in the former region and 792 in the latter. Despite the political differences between them, both locales saw most accusations arise due to agrarian pressures rather than through belief in a diabolical sect.
Tallett, Frank, and D. J. B. Trim, eds. European Warfare, 1350–1750. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
This exceptional collection includes two articles on the Ottomans: Gábor Ágoston, “Empires and Warfare in East-Central Europe, 1550–1770: The Ottoman-HabsburgRivalry and Military Transformation” (pp. 110–134), which privileges the Habsburgs; and Rhoads Murphey, “Ottoman Military Organisation in South-Eastern Europe, c. 1428–1720 (pp. 135–158), which argues for the ability of the Ottomans to sustain successful siege warfare into the later 17th century, DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511806278

Wheatcroft, Andrew. The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans, and the Battle for Europe. New York: Basic Books, 2009.

A good narrative of the events surrounding the siege of Vienna in 1683. Wheatcroft’s expertise is the Habsburgs; the Ottoman side is less well represented. The work could have used more maps and illustrations.
Dávid, Géza, and Pál Fodor, eds. Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman Borders, Early Fifteenth–Early Eighteenth Century. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2007.
Of particular interest in this volume are the articles by Géza Palffy, “Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman-Hungarian Frontier in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries” (pp. 35–82), which discusses the extent of the enterprise in military labor, and Klára Hegyi, “Freed Slaves as Soldiers in the Ottoman Fortresses in Hungary” (pp. 85–91), which offers examples of the options facing Christian prisoners of war. Available as an e-book. See also Pál Fodor and Géza Dávid, Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs in Central Europe: The Military Confines in the Era of Conquest (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2000). DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004157040.i-256

Aksan, Virginia H. “Locating the Ottomans among Early Modern Empires.” Journal of Early Modern History 3.2 (1999): 103–134.
Constructs a template for possible elements of comparison in the Austrian, Ottoman, and Russian empires. DOI: 10.1163/157006599X00017
Bartov, Omer, and Eric D. Weitz, eds. Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013.

This edited volume provides highly textured accountings of bordering processes across central and eastern Europe from the early modern period into the 20th century. It is most striking that a region once characterized by fluid borderlands, hybridity, and intermingling, both in terms of identity, politics, and economics, spiraled toward exclusivity, segregation, and eventually ethnic cleansing.

Cattaruzza, Marina, Stefan Dyroff, and Dieter Langewiesche, eds. Territorial Revisionism and the Allies of Germany in the Second World War: Goals, Expectations, Practices. Austrian and Habsburg Studies 15. New York: Berghahn, 2012.

The ambitions of Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union tend to dominate recounting of the various territorial revisions that swept central and eastern Europe before, during, and after the Second World War. This edited volume rightly notes that the peoples and governments in between the two main combatants were also active forces, by focusing on the motivations of Germany’s allies for siding with Hitler and the disastrous consequences that ensued. A side of Europe’s World War II story that has been overlooked for far too long.

Anderson, Matthew S. The Ascendancy of Europe, 1815–1914. Harlow, UK: Pearson Longman, 2000.

Second edition of the book by British international history scholar M. S. Anderson in which he endeavors to grasp the drastic transformation of Europe throughout the 19th century. The book focuses on the political and economic balance of power; the mechanics of government, economic, and social change; nationalism; Europe’s relations with the rest of the world; changes in warfare; and the intellectual background, with particular attention paid to Romanticism and evolutionary thought.

Bridge, Roy, and Roger Bullen. The Great Powers and the European States System, 1814–1914. 2d ed. Harlow, UK: Pearson Longman, 2005.

This chronological narrative of international relations in Europe between 1814 and 1914 provides one of the best overviews available. Bridge and Bullen analyze how the European states system functioned. The authors focus on diplomatic crises and on the main statesmen, their views and aims, mutual relations, and what determined their decisions.

Sechel, Teodora Daniela, ed. Medicine within and between the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires: 18th–19th Centuries. Papers presented at the conference “Medicine within and between the Habsburg and Ottoman Empire,” Vienna, November 2008. Achtzehnte Jahrhundert und Österreich 2. Bochum, Germany: Winkler, 2011.

This book gives a broad overview of the cultural and political aspects of the history of medicine in the colonial context, with a particular emphasis on the German and Ottoman Empires of the 18th and 19th centuries, by focusing on physician protagonists, international networks, and developments in hospital care and preventive medicine.
Healy, Maureen. Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

This very engaging study of a city at war examines the experience of ordinary residents as they confronted wartime scarcity and regulation. Critically, Healy argues that the inability of the Habsburg state to deal with problems on the home front helped lead to its collapse.

Martz, Linda. Poverty and Welfare in Habsburg Spain. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
A study of poor relief in 16th- and 17th-century Castile that attempts to set both theory and practice into the context of developments elsewhere in Europe. Martz considers authors like Vives and developments linked to the Council of Trent before turning to an extended demographic and institutional study of Toledo. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511897979


Kisby, Fiona. Music and Musicians in Renaissance Cities and Towns. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Music and musicians in urban culture. This collection comprises studies of Austria, southern France, Venice, Spain, Germany, Ireland, and Brabant.
Black, Jeremy. War in the 19th Century, 1800–1914. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2009.

An eminently readable account of the transformation of war during the age of the Industrial Revolution, it should be consulted by those unfamiliar with the nature of war in the industrial age.

Wawro, Geoffrey. “Austria versus the Risorgimento: A New Look at Austria’s Italian Strategy in the 1860s.” European History Quarterly 26 (October 1996): 7–29.
The author is the expert on 19th-century Habsburg and German military history. His research is based on archival material and is absolutely necessary for research on this period. DOI: 10.1177/026569149602600102

Rothenberg, Gunther E. The Army of Francis Joseph. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1976.

The author was the leading authority on the army of the Habsburg Empire from the 18th century through World War I. This single volume is an institutional history of the imperial army during its final century. Anyone interested in Habsburg military affairs must start here.
Sondhaus, Lawrence. The Habsburg Empire and the Sea: Austrian Naval Policy, 1797–1866. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1989.

Sondhaus specializes in naval warfare and the Habsburg Empire. This book was the first in English to properly and expertly address the imperial navy, which played a central role, as many of its officers and crew prior to 1866 were Venetian. As with Rothenberg 1976 (cited under Armies), this must be consulted for work on Habsburg military history in Italy.
Sked, Alan. Radetzky: Imperial Victor and Military Genius. London: Taurus, 2011.

The author is a renowned Habsburg historian. His biography uses the work of Regele 1957 and provides greater illumination on the wily field marshal through the use of Austrian and Italian archival material.
Schroeder, Paul. Austria, Great Britain, and the Crimean War: The Destruction of the European Concert. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1972.

The place of the Crimean War in the international system is crucial to understanding the evolution of European diplomacy from the Congress of Vienna to the First World War. The author, one of the great European diplomatic historians, addresses the impact of the war on the Vienna system and discusses how it changed relationships and diplomatic alliances.

Coppa, Frank J. The Origins of the Italian Wars of Independence. London: Longman, 1992.

The book is an excellent source on the diplomacy and politics of the Wars of Italian Unification. It does particularly well on the interplay of diplomacy among the Italian states.

Thurston, G. J. “The Italian War of 1859 and the Reorientation of Russian Foreign Policy.” Historical Journal 20.1 (1977): 121–144.
The article explores the critical nature of prewar diplomacy and the significance of the Franco-Russian agreement in limiting the war to northern Italy. The agreement was critical to Napoléon III’s plans to wage war against Austria without fearing a general European conflict. DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X00010967

Schneid, Frederick C. “A Well-Coordinated Affair: Franco-Piedmontese War Planning in 1859.” Journal of Military History 76 (April 2012): 523–556.

Based on Italian and French archival documents, this article dispels the historical perception that the military dimension of the war was conducted in an ad hoc fashion, showing that detailed military planning by Piedmont and France began months before the start of the war.
Wawro, Geoffrey. The Austro-Prussian War: Austria’s War with Prussia and Italy in 1866. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

The author approaches the campaign largely from the Austrian perspective but uses documents from several Italian archives along with extensive Austrian documents to develop an incisive narrative and analysis of the campaign in Venetia and the Battle of Custoza. This book is highly recommended.
Alvarez, David. The Pope’s Soldiers: A Military History of the Modern Vatican. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2011.

Military histories of the Papal States are impossible to find if the subject addresses events beyond the 16th century. Alvarez contributes a modern historical narrative and analysis of the military history of the Papal States, particularly during the Risorgimento.


Sinkoff, Nancy. Out of the Shtetl: Making Jews Modern in the Polish Borderlands. Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies, 2004. Centered on the figure of Mendel Lefin, this study examines the development of the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) in 19th-century Galicia. Sinkoff analyzes Lefin’s efforts to counter the new religious movement of Hasidism, the tensions between the Jewish Enlightenment in Berlin and its supporters in Galicia, and the role played by Joseph Perl after Austrian authorities annexed Galicia in 1772.
McCagg, William O. A History of Habsburg Jews, 1670–1918. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989.

An idiosyncratic essay on the social history of Habsburg Jews from the 1670 expulsion of Viennese Jewry until the end of World War I, focusing on modernization, secularization, embourgeoisement, and especially assimilation. The author examines “the Jewish core of the Habsburg bourgeoisie,” seeing it as a window onto the “Imperial bourgeoisie.” In particular, he views the Jews’ “self-denial” and urge to assimilate as keys to understanding the dilemmas of modernity.
Patai, Raphael. The Jews of Hungary: History, Culture, Psychology. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1996.

Comprehensive survey of Hungarian Jewish history from Roman times to the fall of communism, with an emphasis on the 18th and 19th centuries. The author, a Hungarian-born anthropologist, incorporates many of his own recollections and draws on materials published by his father, József Patai (1882–1953), a noted publicist and Cultural Zionist. Published posthumously, without footnotes.
Miller, Michael L. Rabbis and Revolution: The Jews of Moravia in the Age of Emancipation. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011.

Social, religious, and communal history of the Jews of Moravia in the long 19th century, with an emphasis on the transformations of this compact, traditional Jewish community, especially after the Revolution of 1848.
Bartal, Israel, and Antony Polonsky, eds. Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry. Vol. 12, Focusing on Galicia: Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians. London: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1999.

Collection of articles by scholars of Austrian, Ukrainian, Polish, and Jewish history. Several articles examine Habsburg policies toward the Jews in Galicia. Additional articles on Jewish elites, landowners, voters, and migrants.
Rechter, David. Becoming Habsburg: The Jews of Austrian Bukovina, 1774–1914. London: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2013.

A study of the Jews of Bukovina, with particular focus on Czernowitz, the capital of this easternmost Habsburg province. Bukovina’s Jews forged a “unique hybrid of eastern and western Jewries,” and contributed to the cultural flourishing of Czernowitz, in particular. Explores—and largely upholds—the myth of Bukovina as an El Dorado for the Jews.

Shanes, Joshua. Diaspora Nationalism and Jewish Identity in Habsburg Galicia. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
A study of Jews in Habsburg Galicia, caught between Germanization and Polonization, who opt for a distinctly “Jewish” political and cultural agenda, be it in the form of Herzlian Zionism, diaspora nationalism, or the “Jewish Club” in the Austrian parliament. Primarily focuses on the period from 1883 to 1911. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139013642

Freidenreich, Harriet Pass. The Jews of Yugoslavia: A Quest for Community. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979.

Survey of the disparate Jewish communities in Yugoslavia, with a focus on Zagreb, Belgrade, and Sarajevo. Based on Serbo-Croatian sources, with only sporadic treatment of Hungarian-, Ladino-, and German-speaking Jews.

Janos, Andrew. The Politics of Backwardness in Hungary, 1825–1945. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982.

Nuanced study of the economic, social, and political history of Hungary between 1825 and 1945, exploring why the liberal institutions that were transplanted from the West did not produce a market economy and a robust democracy. One of the few works on Hungary to incorporate Jews into the larger narrative of political and economic development.
McCagg, William. Jewish Nobles and Geniuses in Modern Hungary. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1972.

Noticing the remarkable number of Hungarian Jews (and Hungarians of Jewish origin) who rose to the top of the Hungarian commercial and financial elite in the 19th century and were subsequently ennobled, the author samples the 346 Jewish families that acquired Hungarian nobility before 1918 to paint a prosopographical portrait of the Hungarian Jewish upper bourgeoisie.
Beller, Steven. Vienna and the Jews, 1867–1938: A Cultural History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Points to the preponderance of Jews (or rather, individuals of Jewish descent) among the intellectuals and artists in fin de siècle Vienna, arguing that Viennese high culture in this period was, in essence, produced by Jews. Challenges Carl Schorske, who explained this vibrant cultural creativity as a product of the liberal bourgeoisie who sought refuge in the “temple of art” due to their alienation and political marginalization.
Rozenblit, Marsha L. The Jews of Vienna, 1867–1914: Assimilation and Identity. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983.

Social history of the Jews of Vienna in the half century before the outbreak of World War I, with a focus on the tremendous demographic growth, educational trends, occupational stratification, residential living patterns, Jewish communal networks, intermarriage, and conversion.
Wistrich, Robert. The Jews of Vienna in the Age of Franz Joseph. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.

An encyclopedic cultural history of Viennese Jewry in the half century before the First World War. Chapters organized around important preachers, politicians, publicists, musicians, and literati.
Katz, Jacob. A House Divided: Orthodoxy and Schism in Nineteenth-Century Central European Jewry. Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 1998.

A comprehensive narrative and analysis of the trends leading to the Hungarian Jewish Congress of 1868 and the resulting schism of Hungarian Jewry into Orthodox, Neolog, and status quo ante communities. The Hungarian-born Israeli social historian examines the role of Samson Raphael Hirsch, in particular, focusing on the impact of his secessionist ideology on Hungarian Jewry.

Cohen, Gary B. The Politics of Ethnic Survival: Germans in Prague, 1861–1914. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981.

Detailed study of the beleaguered German minority in Prague in the last decades of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Jews in this largely Czech-speaking city made up a large percentage of this cultural, political, and economic elite in decline.

Giustino, Cathleen M. Tearing Down Prague’s Jewish Town: Ghetto Clearance and the Legacy of Middle-Class Ethnic Politics around 1900. Boulder, CO, and New York: East European Monographs, 2003.

Places the massive urban renewal project (“Finis ghetto”) within the context of Prague’s social and ethnic politics at the end of the 19th century, focusing on struggles between Czech middle-class interest groups and general attitudes toward the Jewish quarter that was slated for demolition.
Kieval, Hillel J. The Making of Czech Jewry: National Conflict and Jewish Society in Bohemia, 1870–1918. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Written by the leading scholar of Czech Jewry, this book challenges the conventional view of Czech (and especially Prague) Jewry as a bastion of German culture and political loyalties by focusing on the “Czech-Jewish Movement,” which promoted Czech cultural and linguistic assimilation, and the “Prague Zionists,” who promoted a Jewish national program as an alternative to the German and Czech national movements.
Ranki, Vera. The Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion: Jews and Nationalism in Hungary. New York and London: Holmes & Meier, 1999.

Argues that anti-Semitism is endemic to Hungary. The book’s controversial thesis contends that the Holocaust became inevitable in Hungary as inclusionary liberalism (1867–1918) gave way to exclusionary, antimodern conservatism (1920–1945) following World War I.
Handler, Andrew. Dori: The Life and Times of Theodor Herzl in Budapest (1860–1878). Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1983.

Biography of Theodor Herzl, focusing on his childhood and youth in Budapest.

Rechter, David. The Jews of Vienna and the First World War. London: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2001.

Based on extensive archival research, this monograph explores Viennese Jewry before and during World War I, arguing that the three main ideological camps (nationalist, integrationist, and Orthodox) remained steadfast in their views, even after the end of the Great War. The focus on social and communal history—and especially on the Galician refugees—distinguishes this work from much of the other scholarship on the Jews of late imperial Vienna.

Rozenblit, Marsha. Reconstructing a National Identity: The Jews of Habsburg Austria during World War I. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Explores the impact of the Great War on the “tripartite identity” of Habsburg Jews in Vienna, Bohemia, and Moravia. This tripartite identity, which combined steadfast loyalty to the state, affiliation with a major culture (usually German), and a sense of separate Jewish ethnicity, helps explain the Jews’ enthusiastic support for the war and their postwar nostalgia for multinational Austria-Hungary, which was more tolerant than most of the successor states.
Victor Prusin, Alexander. Nationalizing a Borderland: War, Ethnicity and Anti-Jewish Violence in East Galicia, 1914–1920. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2005.

Occupied by Russian forces during World War I, Habsburg Galicia was caught between Russification and Polonization campaigns, and its Jews suffered violence at the hands of Austrian, Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian troops during the war and in its aftermath. The author examines the interplay of mob violence and state-sponsored violence against the Jews.