Martyn Rady is Masaryk Professor of Central European History at University College London. He has written several major works on the history of Hungary, from the medieval period to the twentieth century, but has also written on topics as diverse as the Hussites, vampirism and the Emperor Charles V. He has honorary doctorates from the Karoli University in Budapest and the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu in Romania.
This is probably the best book ever written on the Habsburgs in any
language, certainly the best I have ever read ... a brilliant
achievement. Students, scholars and the general reader will never
find a better guide to Habsburg history. No one will ever again
know as much about the subject as Rady.
*Times Literary Supplement*
Riveting ... It is impossible to imagine a more erudite and
incisive history of this fascinating, flawed and ultimately tragic
dynasty.
*The Times*
In The Habsburgs, Martyn Rady has produced a Rolls-Royce of a
narrative that motors through ten centuries of history with an
effortlessness that belies the intellectual horsepower beneath the
bonnet ... The vast cast of characters is depicted with a mix of
insight, sympathy and astringent Gibbonian wit that makes them
instantly memorable ... [Rady's] book sheds light on the present
almost as brightly as it illuminates the past.
*Literary Review*
Magnificent ... Rady maintains unerring poise as he steers through
the depths and complexities of his material. His erudition seems
effortless, he never gets bogged down in detail, his prose is
pellucid, and he spices the narrative with delightfully dry asides
and telling anecdotes.
*Daily Telegraph*
Rady restores the Habsburgs to the heart of European history ... An
enjoyable, clever and colourful introduction to the subject, with
plenty of memorable details.
*Sunday Times*
The Habsburgs are a writer's gift, offering a regal cast of mad,
colourful and deeply flawed characters ... Rady's sparkling study
is certainly a good place to start.
*Financial Times*
This volume takes it all in. That Mr. Rady can, in under 350 pages,
cover everything from the division of the family's lands in the
Swiss Argau in 990 to the surrender of power in 1918 by Charles,
the last Habsburg monarch, without sacrificing essential details or
losing the reader's attention, is a feat of both scholarship and
storytelling.
*Wall Street Journal*
An ambitious, wide-ranging, briskly written narrative that crams a
vast amount of often surprising information into twenty-nine dense
but very readable chapters.
*Times Literary Supplement*
Lucid and entertaining ... Rady is as good on the Habsburgs'
artistic and cultural legacy as he is on the politics.
*The Spectator*
This panoramic account manages to make more sense of the European
dynasty than its rulers often did.
*The Guardian*
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