The Middle Kingdoms
A New History of Central Europe
-
- £8.99
-
- £8.99
Publisher Description
'Fascinating, masterful ... gems scattered throughout the book' Peter Frankopan, Spectator
'Quirkily original but also scholarly and authoritative, to be read for pleasure and serious reflection' Telegraph
*The dramatic history of Europe's shape-shifting centre, from the author of The Habsburgs*
Central Europe is not just a space on a map but also a region of shared experience - of mutual borrowings, impositions and misapprehensions. From the Roman Empire onwards, it has been the target of invasion from the east. In the Middle Ages, Central Europeans cast their eastern foes as 'the dogmen'. They would later become the Turks, Swedes, Russians and Soviets, all of whom pulled the region apart and remade it according to their own vision.
Competition among Europe's Middle Kingdoms yielded repeated cultural effervescences. This was the first home of the High Renaissance outside Italy, the cradle of the Reformation, the starting point of the Enlightenment, Romanticism, the symphony and modern nationalism. It was a permanent battleground too for religious and political ideas.
Most recent histories of Central Europe confine themselves to the lands in between Germany and Russia, homing in on Poland, Hungary, and what is now the Czech Republic. This new history embraces the whole of Central Europe, including the German lands as well as Ukraine and Switzerland. The story of Europe's Middle Kingdoms is a reminder of Central Europe's precariousness, of its creativity and turbulence, and of the common cultural trends that make these lands so distinctive.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historian Rady (The Hapsburgs) offers an ambitious survey of Central Europe from antiquity to the present day. Focusing on the area "now included in modern-day Germany, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Slovenia, and western Romania," with forays into "the territory of today's Ukraine, Croatia, Switzerland, and the Baltic states," Rady draws succinct, clear distinctions between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, among other social, religious, ethnic, and political influences, and stuffs the narrative with valuable context and vivid character sketches. For example, he notes that 16th-century religious reformer Martin Luther wrote his "scabrous and funny" sermons to be read aloud, since fewer than one in 10 Germans was literate at the time, and that before Otto von Bismarck became chancellor of the German Empire in 1871, "the only personal ambition he disclosed was to drink in his lifetime ten thousand bottles of champagne." Rady also introduces readers to lesser-known figures, including 19th-century Hungarian-Croatian politician Charles Khuen-Héderváry. At times, Rady's exploration of key events, including the 1968 Prague Spring and its crushing by Soviet troops, feels somewhat cursory, but he covers a vast swath of geographical and chronological ground, and his evocative prose renders this complex history accessible. It's a boon for anyone seeking insights into Central Europe's influence on the modern world.
