From Publishers Weekly
In an astonishing work of literary energy and historical insight, the author of The Rothschilds brings us the backstage dynamics that preceded the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, the deed that precipitated WW I. Morton captures both the elegant decadence of Emperor Franz Joseph's Vienna, and the potent spirits of those revolutionary thinkers who, all in Vienna at some time during the two years before the war, would blow away the past and create modernity. There were Stalin, Trotsky and Lenin; Freud and Jung; the glowering Hitler; Kafka, Wittgenstein and Karl Kraus; and a small band of Serb nationalists, one of whom fired the shot that catapulted Franz Joseph, Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas into a war they didn't want but couldn't prevent, and that reduced them to puppets.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Like the author's earlier A Nervous Splendour: Vienna 1888-1889 ( LJ 11/15/79), which focused on the suicide of the Hapsburg Crown Prince Rudolph, this social history of the same city focuses on the events and personalities surrounding the assassination of the last Crown Prince, Franz Ferdinand. A remarkable procession of influential persons waltzed through Vienna during the two winter social seasons; some were already famous in their fields (Freud), others would only later attain powerful positions (Hitler). Extensively based on personal memoirs and contemporary periodicals, the work is less scholarly than Barbara Tuchman's The Proud Tower ( LJ 12/1/65) but adds a flavor which she omitted. It belongs in larger collections.
- Marcia L. Sprules, Council on Foreign Relations Lib., New York
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Marcia L. Sprules, Council on Foreign Relations Lib., New York
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
