Hungary Books

Rather looks like a turn paper of a quite average-college standard.
Also, the reference index is really not revealing.

So, why?

A somewhat dry but thorough narrative history of the second siege of Vienna. The work was originally written in the early sixties, and lacks many of the qualities that people look for in more modern works of popular history. Although it is very thorough when it describes the political and diplomatic events of the seige, there is little here for a social or a military historian. There is no discussion of the general way of life, of the personal experiences of small people, or of the weaponry or tactics of the day. Similarly, there is no discussion of the economic factors that helped lead up to the conflict, or were affected by the conflict. Nor are the events put into the long-term history of centuries of conflict of the Ottoman and Austrian empires, nor the context of the development of Islam in Europe. Nor is there a description of the cultural impact of the seige on further generations of eastern Europeans.

These criticisms may be unfair. For a historian of the early sixties, John Stoye writes a good thorough narrative account, and teases out the facts of what really happened when with judicious skill. This is what historians of his era generally did. To ask for more, is to ask for a book written later, which would look at more. If you are reading any other books related to the seige of Vienna, then this is probably a very good book to get, as it will explain, carefully and readably, the sequence of events: a need that more modern historians sometimes overlook in their attempts to be very clever or insightful. It is a bit dry however, by modern standards.

A bit more detail than I was looking for. Not that it was a scholarly monograph, just more layered and complex than "popular" history.

This is a meticulously researched and documented history of a distant event with contemporary repercussions. However, it is remarkable how indifferently the question of illustrations and maps was dealt with. I don't understand why someone would produce such a wonderful and detailed account and then accompany it with maps and illustrations that are virtually meaningless. The maps are either insufficiently detailed to permit following the documentation in the text, or the illustrations (themselves of some interest because of their contemporaneousness) so indistinct as to render references to them useless. There should be a match between the illustrations and the text--either reduce the textual detail to match the illustrations, or (far better) include illustrations that support the text.

Not many people today realize that militant Islam reached as far West as Vienna in its attempt to conquor Europe. After reading this meticulously researched and coherently presented book, the reader will come to realize what a close call Western civilization had before the gates of Vienna in 1683. France, the largest country and most militant power in the West, refused to help the Emperor because it suited its own political ends, even at the cost of the eastern part of Europe being lost to the Moslems. The saviors were a motley group of small German principalities and the Kingdom of Poland, led by its ruler Jan Sobieski. Were it not for these groups, and particularly the Poles, our history might have been completely different now. What thanks did the Empire give to Poland? As a later Austrian diplomat said in another connection: "Our ingratitude will astonish the world." Merely a century later, Austria took part in the dismembering of Poland, and wiping that heroic kingdom from the map of Europe for well over a century. If Sobieski had still been alive, he would have wished that he and his army had stayed home in 1683!

As a regular reader of biographies (just finished a wonderful book on Talleyrand), was really disappointed. Found it to be tedious and disjointed - written like a college thesis, trying to impress the reader with as many facts thrown into a sentence as possible. Even though I plan a trip to Central Europe in the Fall, and am really interested in its history, I could not finish this book. Have currently ordered the John Van Der Kiste book on Franz Joseph and dearly hope it's better than this one.

Twilight of the Habsburgs is a nice biography of the Emperor Francis Joseph and his times. Francis Joseph ruled the Hapsburg lands from 1848 to 1916. He is usually seen as an obtuse, stubborn old autocrat who refused to change with the times and thus doomed his empire to collapse. Alan Palmer takes a somewhat revisionist view of the Emperor, pointing out that he had a far better mind than he is normally credited with (although handicapped by a very poor education) and was willing to make reforms when necessary (of course he rarely saw the necessity on his own). Even when he did see the need to change, he often waited until it was too late. For example, in mid 1916 he talked of pulling his country out of World War I in the spring of 1917. What if he had gone ahead and made peace in the summer of 1916? Maybe a shorter war, no Russian Revolution, no American intervention, the mind reels with the implications! But unfortunately he put that decision off and died before he could implement it.

The strongest portions of this book deal with Francis Joseph's personal life. I felt sorry for the poor man, dealing in turn with a bossy mother, a flighty wife he loved dearly, a son who wasted his great abilities and committed suicide, and a host of nephews and cousins who couldn't behave themselves and certainly didn't give him the support he needed. His life was full of losses, a brother executed in Mexico, his wife assassinated, his son a suicide, and finally his nephew and heir's murder bringing on a World War. At least he had one friend, an actress he visited for years in a platonic relationship. Its nice to think of him laughing with her over coffee, it must have been the only chance he had to relax!

Francis Joseph was not a brilliant or especially bright, but he did his duty as he saw it and stuck to it right to the end. It is this that makes him admirable today.

Not just a well written history, it truely the story of a very large and powerful family.

Prior to reading this book, my knowledge of Emperor Franz Josef was mostly limited to his involvement in World War I: a staunch leader committed to preserving the Old Order whose government ultimately turned the Sarejevo crisis into an international one.

Palmer's book "The Twilight of the Habsburgs: The Life and Times of Emperor Franz Josef" changed my perspective on the Austrian monarch not by painting him as a exceptional or clever leader, which he wasn't; but simply by portraying Franz Josef as a dutiful leader whose reign and personal life was frequently marred by tragedy. Indeed, Franz Josef was keen on his empire's defeat at war at the hands of the French, Italians, and Prussians. As a result, it seems likely he never would have dragged Austria-Hungary into the Great War if it were not for the influence wielded by various ministers on the then-84 year-old emperor. Throughout his life, he was abandoned by a vacationing wife whose life was cut short by an Italian anarchists, his son committed suicide in a mysterious pact, his brother was executed after a failed bid to rule Mexico, and his nephew's assassination in Sarejevo was the saprk that ignited World War I. Indeed, the reader will find out that Franz Josef's personal life was far from a royal fairytale.

Besides the enormous tragedies experienced by Emperor Franz Josef, the changing times surrounding the Emperor's long reign (1848-1916) are nothing short of an exciting setting that may be difficult for us to fathom in the 21st century. At the dawn of Franz Josef's reign, the cavalryman was still prominent on the battlefield, Germany and Italy were mostly collections of squabbling states on his northern and southern border, and the flight of man was limited to a pipe dream. However, by the end of his career, Franz Josef lived in a world where war took to the air and a unified Germany was one of the premeir powers in the world.

The book's only flaw is perhaps more of an annoyance than a serious misgiving: Palmer translates the names of his German subjects to English, hence the reader will constantly see "Francis Joseph" instead of "Franz Josef." Perhaps he did this to appeal to wider audience, but I do beleive that anyone willing to pick up a book on an Austrian emperor is knowledgeable enough to contemplate German names.

Overall, this is an excellent book for those interested in European monarchs, the 1850-1918 time period, or a good biography.

This book is a splendid description of Franz Josefs life. Every ascpect is covered good, and you realy feel that you get a picture of the man and the emperor. I strongly recommend it.

In many of his books, Lukacs sets out to write a multi-disciplinary history (drawing on economics, psychology, sociology, and political theory) of a narrowly circumscribed subject during a relatively thin slice of time (e.g., "Five Days in London, May 1940" and "June 1941: Hitler and Stalin"). Here, the object of Lukacs' rather idiosyncratic approach to history is the city of Budapest around 1900, which, according to Lukacs, was the city's zenith as a cultural and commercial center of (Eastern) Europe. Unlike reading many of Lukacs' books, however, reading BUDAPEST 1900 is tough going. Lukacs does make an impressive case for the significance of Budapest and its many notable literary, artistic, and intellectual figures around the turn of the century, but he burdens that case with page after page of tedious chamber-of-commerce data: miles of railroad track, water consumption per capita, number of mailboxes, number of gymnasiums, theater seats per capita, etc., etc. Further, it is not readily apparent which pages or paragraphs to skip. To get to the wheat, one must necessarily sift through a lot of chaff.

I read this book as background and in preparation for reading some of the works of Gyula Krudy, and I looked forward to it because over the years I had enjoyed a number (at least six) other books by Lukacs. But this is not as well-written nor as intrinsically interesting as were the other books of his that I read, and the prickly and grandiloquent (an adjective that is used far too often in the book) side of Lukacs is a little too evident. Despite numerous informative and insightful passages, I had to force myself to stick with this book to the end, and having reached the end I am not sure it was worth the effort.

History doesn't have to be a boring list of facts - look at Norman Davies's Europe: A History for evidence of that. But Lukac's Budapest 1900 is an example of what can go wrong when the historian attempts to write like a novelist.

Many parts of Budapest 1900, a potrait of the city at the turn of the century, are bogged down in long descriptive passages which try to impart a mood. In Budapest's heyday around 1900 sun lights up the beautiful women shopping in the boutiques on Vaci Street. Later, during the short-lived Communist government after World War I, politicians scheme in badly-lit basement rooms.

This kind of impressionistic history becomes irritating, and detracts from otherwise interesting detail about a city which was once the fastest growing in the world. There are also sizeable footnotes on almost every page, which seem unecessary in a non-academic history like Budapest 1900.

Furthermore, Lukacs employs a flowery style, which also grates. There are lots of unecessary self-references to "this historian" and tortured sentences like the following: "Seeds of trouble is the title i gave to this chapter: but semination is one thing, and fructification another."

The book also fails to draw all of the chapters together in a thematic whole. Finishing the book is unsatisfactory - You have very little sense of what it was really about, beyond a trip down memory lane.

This is another book that deserves to be put back into print. Throughout a long and productive career, John Lukacs has taken pride (sometimes bordering on preening) in his penchant for defining things his own way. Sometimes it works, sometimes it just a distraction. But no subject is better suited to his mix of talents than this "historical portrait" (as he puts it) of this the capital of his native country.

The book is a nostalgia trip in part, but it is a good deal more. Lukacs also undertakes to to situate Budapest in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and in particular, in contrast to its great partner, Vienna -- it's remarkable even today how these two cities, so close together on the map can seem so far apart.

But perhaps the best part of the book is in his chapter on "Seeds of Trouble," when he undertakes to show how liberal nationalism went sour and headed down the road to anti-semitism and the destructive hyper-nationalism that wracked us all through so much of the 20th century. Liberal nationalism had always contained the seeds of its own undoing. Discerning politicians as disparate as Disraeli, Bismark and Napoleon III had already grasped how the liberal impulse could be harnessed to conservative ends. But through Lukacs' eyes, you can see just how quick and subtle -- and disastrous -- the shift can be. Probably the point is that Lukacs was never a good liberal to begin with. So he can look on with unblinkered eyes as the liberal vision crumbles in his hands.

For all of Lukacs' aristocratic disdain, it is possible for a reader less austere than the author to see this shift as a disaster. Perhaps a good pairing for this book would be Gordon A. Craig's "Triumph of Liberalism" about Zurich in a slightly earlier time: there you can be reminded (if you need reminding) of just how refreshing the rise of liberalism could be.

Lukacs has a final chapter called "Since Then," but it's perfunctory. There's certainly a story to be told about 20th Century Budapest, but you wouldn't come here to find it. On the other hand, as an exercise in archaeology -- of the substrate that underlies our more recent battles -- this book is hard to beat.

Lukacs attempts to capture the mental climate of Budapest 1900. This is a kind of impressionistic approach to history that uses scholarship to achieve its effects. He is definitely worth reading.

Reading this book took me on a trip to an age when things were golden. I was able to see places I have been and picture myself in those times. The christian-jewish relationships were a model that can be likened-to today's America. I enjoyed the section about the coffeehouse district and also the author's footnotes. I learned a lot of things I did not know about political sides and issues.

Anyone thinking of buying this book will be pleased with their purchase. I have read "An Undiplomatic Diary", by an american General after WWI. I would like to read about Emperor Karl 1st, the "Peace Emperor". This combination of books bring about a rounded history. I am sure that there are other books to read, but these are pretty good places to start.

The last chapter tied everything together and was very strong.
Bravo! Is there another chapter about the last 14 years or so?

Overall, this taught me the rudimentary basics of survival Hungarian well. Locals in Budapest understood me pretty well, and didn't roll their eyes too much. :-) Thus, the high star rating. I did not give it five stars because I felt there was not enough repetition. This was easily solved by liberal use of the 'rewind' button on my iPod, though. (I downloaded the cds to my iPod before my trip.) Here are a couple comments and suggestions, in no particular order:
- Definitely start listening and learning before your flight. One transatlantic flight would never have been enough for me, personally.
- Before trying to learn some Hungarian, you must recognize how unique it is and how utterly unrelated it is to any Indo-European languages you may know.
- The phrasebook is very handy; I kept it in my pocket and used it frequently.

Hope this helps someone. Have a great time in beautiful Hungary!

I wouldn't wait for the flight, but I listened to these tapes for a couple of months on my commute before going to Hungary and it was very helpful. Some suggestions. It would be more helpful if you begin not just by listening, but by sitting down with the book and getting used to the written word. Then once familiar, listening can be more fruitful. I managed to master a few important phrases like Hello, yes, no, I don't speak Hungarian, do you speak English, excuse me, how much, where is.. and sorry. But if I could do it again, I would have made a more concerted effort to learn my numbers (at least to 5) and as much of the CD as possible. It is only one CD, but it covers a lot of material. I believe that if you memorized everything in the CD, you would do very well. Keep in mind that there is a fair amount of English used in Hungary, it seems to be the common language between all non-English tourists, but it helps to learn a little Magyar, and I wholeheartedly recommend this CD.

Lousy: for example, they quickly give you the pronounciation (only once) and do not leave adequate time for you to consider what was just pronounced. THIS IS ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT FOR HUNGARIAN BECAUSE IT IS A VERY UNIQUE LANGUAGE.

I have tried othr In-flight languages and find them barely acceptable. If you already knew most of the words...they may be able to help you pronounce them...BUT only if the example was repeated a couple of times before going to the next word.

It's great! I learned quite a few Hungarian words in just a few days.

As some of the other reviewers noted, Hungarian is a unique language. It is not related to the other Central European languages, it is not derived from Latin. Heck, it isn't Indo-European.
This is important when considering what to buy when trying to learn the language in that it means: 1. you are not going to recognize individual words because they are not similar to the same word in French, Italian, Spanish, German or English and 2. you are not going to be familiar with the vowel or the consonants. There are sounds unknown to English in Hungarian.
So why am I babbling on about this? One of the first phrase this ill-thought teaching method tries to teach you is " I don't speak Hungarian very well". Or Nem nagyam beszelek magyarul. They say it once (at normal speaking rate!), give you time to register just how completely unprepared you are to repeat what you just heard and then they move on to the next phrase. I kid thee not. I would bet that sometimes as they were recording this stuff they found it hard not to laugh.
The third section does cover numbers and is probably the most useful section of the CD. One word at a time when learning this unique language is about right. I have a Hungarian neighbor and when she (w/ infinite patience) tries to teach me words, I usually require three or four attempts to get them right.
They are no sections devoted to individual pronouns, verbs, etc. There are sections (like the one on restaurants) where they give you individual words like plate, etc. Those are useful. The book is a necessity the first few times you listen to each section. The phonetic pronunciations are essential and help you to pick up on things like the Hungarian tendency to stress the first syllable. And the book helps you to pick up on individual words.
I guess that what I am saying is that this is not necessarily a bad product. It is certainly not what I would recommend to anyone that needs a quick intro to this language. When I find that product, I will review it.

This book, which tells the story of a successful Battle of Little Bighorn, is painstakingly well researched. Obviously, researcher Bill Moody did his job; all the "players" of the Gilded Age fall into their obvious roles. The comparisons to JFK don't stop at the brothers in the government or the youthful (unfaithful) President and his pretty wife, though Skimin claims that the book is not intended to be compared to "Camelot."

The problem is that either Skimin is a terrible writer or his editors had it in for him. The book is riddled with grammatical and stylistic errors, especially "it's" for "its." At first it's just annoying, but after awhile the errors really detract from the enjoyment of the story.

I thoroughly enjoyed this "what if" story of a successful Custer who seemed to be ahead of his time, and yet suffered from the same character defects as more recent leaders. While the details surrounding some of the lesser characters was a little tedious, it was a quick,interesting, and fun read. In the final analysis, Custer could not escape the Little Big Horn and, as with JFK, the promise of a great leader was not realized. Don't miss this book if you enjoy alternative history and Custer mythology.

...and I hate to say that, because I was really, REALLY looking forward to reading this book! Alternate histories fascinate me (as they do many readers) and although I'm happy to say that the author appears to have a good grasp of Custer as a personality and doesn't paint him as a heartless, Indian-hating, glory-grabbing brute (which is refreshing!), his style is extremely dry. The research is sound, but it's more like reading a history textbook than a novel. So, if you're looking for a teeth-rattling page-turner, I'm afraid this isn't it. "Marching to Valhalla" is a much better bet!

I have been reading alternative histories on and off since MacKinlay Kantor wrote "If the South Had Won the Civil War" several decades ago. The two key factors in any alternative history are (1) what happens differently to alter the flow of history and (2) what significant chances result from that alteration. Such stories are usually flawed because the first part becomes convoluted beyond belief, but that is certainly not the case with "Custer's Luck," written by Robert Skimin with researcher William E. Moody. The pivotal moment is, of course, the Battle of the Little Big Horn, and the authors have George Armstrong Custer discover the true size of the Indian camp he is about to attack. So instead of continuing with his suicidal charge he reunites his elements of the 7th Calvary with those under Reno and Benteen. With a unified command Custer is able to compel Sitting Bull to surrender by employing his standard tactic, threatening the women and children. Therefore, instead of the newspapers being full of the massacre of Custer's troops on nation's Centennial, "Long Hair" is credited with a great victory. All of this is certainly plausible.

Equally reasonable is the idea that Custer would then have been tapped to run for President in 1880. The main thrust of "Custer's Luck" is therefore going to be what happens to the destiny of America with Custer in the White House. If you have a reasonable grasp of American history--and there is no reason to be reading these types of books if you do not--then half the fun is recognizing where and when the authors are lifting ideas and events. This goes from such relatively minor things as the court-martial of a black West Point cadet to Custer insisting the U.S. cannot afford to be Isolationist, the political philosophy that was the flaw in American diplomacy throughout the 20th century. Ultimately, "Custer's Luck" wants to have the United States try to begin that century the way it ended it, as the preeminent military and political power on the planet. Consequently, Custer fast-forwards the nation in terms of developing a strong navy, building the Panama Canal, provoking a war with Spain over Cuba, and even supporting women's suffrage.

The main sub-plot of the novel focuses on Red Elk, a young Sioux Warrior who vows over the dead body of his pregnant wife that he will kill "Long Hair." Red Elk is a fictional character, originally created in Skimin's "The River and the Horsemen: A Novel of the Little Big Horn." Given that previous novel along with the fact Moody is the editor of "The Journal of the Little Bighorn Associates," it is not surprising that several of those who died with Custer--his brothers Tom and Boston, Myles Keogh, Mark Kellogg and William Cooke--are prominent throughout the novel. Even Frederick Benteen, never a Custer supporter, becomes a Congressman bent on derailing his former commander's ambitions. There are also some soap opera elements; at one point Custer even ends up in the arms of Lillie Langtry. But even before we get to Skimin's final postscript comment "Any comparison to Camelot is in the mind of the reader," it is clear that John F. Kennedy is the major model for the Custer Administration and its theme of "The New American Empire." After all, Custer puts brother Tom in a Cabinet post while his brother Boston is elected a Congressman, Libbie wants to fix up the White House and Custer has the government supporting the fine arts.

I am perfectly willing to grant that many of the things Custer does in this novel could have been done at that time. I will even agree that a national hero such as Custer would have been after winning the Battle of the Little Bighorn could be swept to the Presidency (although Custer's narrow victory in the election does not ring true to me, even if the man was a Democrat). What I find hard to believe is that a President Custer would have been so visionary. When he works out diplomatic solutions to get both Geronimo and Sitting Bull back to their reservations, it is clear that Skimin and Moody are offering us a different Custer than the egotistical daredevil of history's current judgment. Then again, this only underscores that the character is ultimately only a device that allows the authors to shape their alternative America, so there is a logic to their alterations. However, the ending of "Custer's Luck" conveniently frees Skimin from having to finish what he has started. The significant changes that should be at the heart of this alternative history are therefore secondary to the parade of historical figures Custer and his cohorts encounter in the novel. To say the least, I find this to be an unsatisfactory way of concluding this story, essentially negating much of the momentum Skimin and Moody had in creating their alternate America.

Fiction, indeed: George Armstrong Custer wins at the Little Bighorn and becomes such a hero that he is later nominated for the presidency of the United States. Skimin explores the possibilities of this scenario, and it's up to the reader to decide if it makes any difference when an alternative personage resides in the Oval Office. If you know just the barest of facts about Custer, you'll find this book interesting. If you've done your homework and read "Crazy Horse and Custer" by Stephen Ambrose, you'll find the work intriguing. At the very least, it's stimulating food for historical thought.

Unfortunately, the editing and/or proofreading job on the publication leaves a lot to be desired. When I started counting the number of times "it's" was mistakenly employed instead of "its" -- 17 -- I knew the styling was getting in the way of my enjoyment of the story. I also saw at least 11 spelling or grammatical errors; mis- or non-uses of dashes, hyphens, quotes, and question marks became too numerous to make note of. It's surprising that a commercial publisher can let that much slip by these days. For the reputation of the author, I sincerely hope the glitches are corrected if this title goes to paperback or to an additional printing.

Well written about one of the worst sieges of the 2nd WW
Makes you wonder how on earth people did survive.The author's access to German and Russian files makes it very credible.
Both my parents were killed just days after the end of the siege in February 1945.
Fascinating reading.

This is an excellent book covering a little known battle of WWII. The author goes into a great deal of detail and has great sources, talking to many people from all of the sides involved. The original book written in Hungarian came out a couple of years prior to this English language version. It was fascinating to read about events that happened during the siege of Budapest and then go to the places and see where it happened. If you are into military history and will find yourself in Budapest read this book, even if you never go you will find it interesting. The only thing I would have liked more of in the book, are pictures. Budapest was and is a beautiful city and to see pictures of the ruined city are quite fascinating.

"Battle For Budapest, 100 Days in World War II" by Krisztian Ungvary, is by far the best book in English about the decisive battle in Hungary in the closing months of WWII. Mr. Ungvary covers the political as well as the military situation leading up to the battle, as well as chapters on the plight of the civilian population and the atrocities against the Jewish population during the siege. This book is an excellent guide for the traveler who is going to the city and wants to see the locations of key events from the battle, as he gives both the names of the streets in the 40's as well as what the streets are called today. The book also includes 32 tables of statistics on topics like balance of forces, ration strength, and tank and assault gun comparisions between the Soviet and Axis forces. Great research, get this book if you can.

This book offers 382 pages of actual account, the rest are charts, bibliography, etc. This book's first edition went for close to $100 and I was tempted to make the sacrifice. When the cheaper edition came out I ordered it, my advise, save your money. This book reads like a very dry after action report, also the author keeps jumping to and fro making cohesive reading impossible. It is impossible to follow the action even with the maps provided which are woefully small and hard to read. The prologue could well have been written by Simon Wiesenthal, for all it does is make it seem as though the jews in Budapest were the only ones who suffered. The germans are portrayed as the villains and the author does not miss a chance to blame them for anything that he fancies, he would make Ilya Ehrenburg very proud. Some of his appraisals border on the ridiculous and he must have gone through a lot of pains to try and document his asseverations and make them look credible but he failed (a 15 year old is standing next to a german soldier inside an apartment and a mine? explodes severing the german's fingers but nothing happens to the 15 year old... give me a break!). He also confuses the reader by refering to typographical features back in 1944-45 versus land features today, 70 years later! He is also very good at twisting the words to imply one thing while meaning another, always in detriment of the germans, of course. Richard Landwehr's Budapest: The Stalingrad of the Waffen-SS, available from amazon is a much better choice for descriptions of the actual battle which is what every reader seeks and author Ungvary fails to deliver.

His adulation of communist terrorists and their actions show the author's true colors. Labeling them as heroes when the truth is they were the forerunners of the modern day terrorist. The glorification and justification of their actions cemented the basis for our present day woes with terrorism. This book was written by and for communists and in no way offers an impartial view of the battle of Budapest. An author has a duty, to be as impartial as he can when ofering his product allowing the reader to reach his own conclusions. Ungvary tries to force feed his beliefs into the mind of the reader and this should be unacceptable to the intelligent reader who considers himself a free thinking individual. Throughtout he focuses on the jewish question again and again, relegating the battle to a secondary plane which he tries to resurrect with a few insipid witness accounts which to me are less than credible.

At the beginning of the book there are squalid descriptions of the german defensive actions against vastly superior russian armored forces before the siege that are amongst the most interesting tidbits of the book. Red Storm over the Balkans: The Failed Soviet Invasion of Romania, by noted historian David M. Glantz, is a book not yet published which might shed some light on these and other events leading to the invasion of Hungary and most definitely offer more interesting reading than Ungvary's maligned and squalid attempt at documenting the battle of Budapest.

Having searched for this book for over 2 years, I was very eager to read about this important but little documented battle. I might well have left it alone. The book gets completely bogged down in minutae and loses the big picture. While far from exonerating the Hungarians who fought with the Germans, it instead attempts to lionize them and their exploits at the expense of the Germans who are uniformly painted as cowardly, moody, unhelpful and not heroic. The account of the battle written in the Journal of Military History is much briefer of course, but so much better. The relief strategy of the German army, movements, etc are all lost. The situation is not explained but instead obscure references to streets that no longer exist, poor maps and no in depth personality analysis relegate this book to nothing more than after action unit reports stripped of context and drama. One of the worst of this type I have ever read, extremely disappointing. One somewhat ironic point made in the book however, was that the Hungarians treated the Jews so badly that the Jews actually appealed to the Germans for relief.

His entire biography section in the beginning had numerous grammatical mistakes. It started bugging me so much I underlined every single one and sure enough, almost every page had one grammatical error. Very annoying.

The rest was fine except how some of the reviewers mentioned that the author made it out to be an analysis of Ligeti's music. Rather it is more like he's talking about the background of the piece while touching only the surface of the actual music.

Richard Steinitz has written a book that all lovers of Ligeti's music should read. It might well persuade others to try the music, too. It is a book long in the making, Steinitz has been in contact with Ligeti over years, and has had extensive time with him to check details.

There is a mass of biographical information, especially about the early years in Transylvania and in the whirling political confusion of WW2 and the immediate post-war years. Fascinating stuff, although this isn't a biography in the sense of trying to investigate all the ins and outs of Ligeti's psyche (and all the better for that!)

It has to be said that if, like me, you are not musically trained, then some of the analysis is pretty tough. There were places where I had no choice but to skip. Sometimes, as in the discussion of the piano etudes, the sheer density of the musicological argument is daunting.

But I've still given the book 5 stars. When the technicalities got too much I put down the book and listened to a recording of the music instead. Then I found that the ideas I could take from the discussion were stimulating a richer hearing. My ears were bigger! For example, I have never put "San Francisco Polyphony" that high in my favourites of Ligeti's work - but I need to reconsider that now I've read and re-listened. The turn in Ligeti's work with the Horn Trio is clearly established, as are other key turning points in Ligeti's oeuvre and this enables a crtitical, historical, approach to the music.

So I've been helped to sudy (by ear) Ligeti in greater depth. Richard Steinitz, founder of the wonderful and important Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in Britain, has already done so much for modern music - and this book is another invaluable contribution.

We can only hope that Ligeti has a late efflorescence (like Elliot Carter), and that this book becomes out-dated and needs to be updated regularly.

Richard Steinitz's GYORGY LIGETI: Music Of The Imagination is the best biography of this contemporary composer available today, and essential reading for those who are passionate about Ligeti's output. It goes as far as the premier of the "Hamburg Concerto" and the 2000 set of Weores songs, and as Ligeti has composed little to nothing in the meantime, the book is still entirely up to date.

Steinitz's work alternates biographical details with analysis of Ligeti's works. One learns a lot more about Ligeti's life from this biography than from others, as Steinitz was fortunate enough to have several conversations with Ligeti. The analysis of Ligeti's music can occasionally get pretty technical, but even those with a passing knowledge of music theory can learn a lot from the book. The biography certainly expands one's appreciation of Ligeti's music, which is what one hopes for from a musical biography. After this you'll easily hear how "Lux Aeterna" (written, we're told, during an addiction to morphine) and "Lontano" are linked through a similar melody hidden in each. The inspirational basis of each Piano Etude is revealed, and "San Francisco Polyphony" stops seeming like a throwaway work and instead as a key part of Ligeti's maturation.

This is, in a way, "authorised biography". There is a lot of adoration of Ligeti, and Steinitz takes Ligeti's side in the coverage of polemic in the book, such as in Ligeti's opposition to Peter Sellar's staging of "Le Grand Macabre" and the composer's disappointment with the ensembles chosen to complete Sony's "Gyorgy Ligeti Edition" series. Since I am myself a faithful fan of Ligeti, I don't see this as a downside.

If you've been collecting the two series' of Ligeti's collected works in performances supervised by the composer himself (Sony's "Gyorgy Ligeti Edition" and Teldec's "The Ligeti Project"), consider this a vital companion to getting the most out of the music. I really can't find anything to complain about with the book.

One and one-half stars--say.

The author explains that he set out to write a book of musical analysis informed by the circumstances of the composer's life, not a biography. I agree that he hasn't written much of a biography; he tends to talk around Ligeti's life rather than about it. I disagree, however, that he's written a book of musical analysis. The "analysis" here is all gloss (clumsy references to "letter B" in the score, and so on, notwithstanding), more or less the sort of thing you get in orchestral program notes or in record liner notes--except that orchestral program notes and record liner notes are usually better written. Despite the author's claim (made repeatedly and redundantly) to have interviewed Ligeti himself in depth, great swaths of this are taken directly, sometimes verbatim, sometimes awkwardly paraphrased, from "Ligeti in Conversation". Purple prose, buzz words, and grammatical solecisms abound. No, if you want to read an engaging account of Ligeti's life, read Richard Toop's biography. If you want analytical glosses, get them from the horse's mouth; read "Ligeti in Conversation". Ligeti is a much better speaker than Steinitz is a writer, an articulate, provocative, man of keen intellect.

In his introduction, Gordon Brook-Shepherd boasts that an Austrian critic once claimed that Brook-Shepherd "knew more about Austria and the Austrians than any living Englishman." After reading "Uncrowned Emperor," I find that claim to be *very* dubious. This book is absolutely riddled with factual errors, both concerning Austria and other European countries.

Among the most glaring . . .
p. 24: Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated on June 28, 1914, not June 26, 1914. Although the difference is slight, this date is known to almost every schoolboy in Austria.
p. 31: Empress Zita's brother Sixtus fought for the Belgians in World War I, not the French. This is significant because of Sixtus's efforts to mediate a peace settlement with Austria.
p. 33: During the course of fighting in World War I, German troops had no "final retreat--back to the homeland." They withdrew in an orderly fashion after the armistice was signed. On November 11, 1918, German troops, though weakened, were still on French soil.
p. 80: During the Weimar Republic, there was no such thing as a "Democratic Conservative Party." The Democratic Party was not conservative, and the conservative party (DNVP) was not democratic.

Brook-Shepherd also has problems with first names.
-- Thomas (or Tomas) Masaryk, not Jan Masaryk, was the founder and first president of Czechoslovakia. This error is notable both because it is repeated several times and because Thomas (or Tomas) Masaryk was largely responsible for the dissolution of the Habsburg Empire. Jan Masaryk was Czechoslovak foreign minister after 1945.
-- The regent of the Kingdom of Hungary was Miklos Horthy, not Niklos Horthy.
-- The former chancellor of Germany is Helmut Kohl, not Helmuth Kohl.

The editors should have caught all of these errors.

Another problem with this biography is that the writing is extremely uncritical. It is clear that Brook-Shepherd is much too close to his subject to be objective, and at times he veers into overt monarchism. Additionally, his constant asides and parenthetical comments are a distraction. This reviewer wishes for a more scholarly rigorous and objective study of Otto von Habsburg.

This is a fine biography of a man who, but for a World War, might have been an Emperor and King. Otto von Hapsburg, born in 1912,was the son of the last Emperor of Austria-Hungary. His parents were overthrown in late 1918 and young Otto, whose own memories of his childhood are astonishingly vivid, began a life of exile.

Otto had every right to be bitter over the hand fate dealt him, but we see very little of such an emotion in his life. Instead, we see a man whose dedication to Austria and Hungary (and later to all of Europe) never wavered. He stood by his homelands and was their most fervent advocate even in the dark days of World War II and the Cold War. He was ambitious yet honorable, as we see repeatedly when he refused to have anything to do with Hitler, for example.

Otto's most important contributions came towards the end of his life, when he became one of the first members of the European Parliament. For twenty years he was a steadfast advocate of greater European unity, but within a setting in which tradition, custom, and above all established religion were not ignored. He was also a devoted family man, marrying rather late in life and fathering a large brood of children.

So although Otto von Hapsburg did not achieve the status he was born to, he nevertheless made a positive contribution to the world, something his ancestors, many of whom held more power but had far less stature, would certainly be proud of.

I found this book dry; yet overly sympathetic to its subject, without a historian's objectivity. Oddly, despite the author's admiration for Otto the statesman, we never learn much about Otto, the inner man. A balanced biography should have both sides of the story. I, too, noticed many of the errors cited by the other reviewer...While I could appreciate some of the information (particularly about Emperor Karl's attempt to regain the Hungarian throne), I didn't really enjoy the book, and it didn't make my keeper shelf.

Brook-Shepherd's latest Habsburg effort is all him, colorful phrases and all. A large portion of the book actually summarizes much of the happenings in his previous works, THE LAST EMPRESS and THE LAST HABSBURG, though he manages (no doubt somewhat through new interviews with Otto as well as material he may have held back) enough new anecdotes to keep that material fresh for returning readers. He does tend as in his other works to interpret the words and behaviors of Habsburg "enemies" in an extremely unflattering light, whether these were overt and obvious or not. The relatively smaller amount of space devoted to them here ends up sharpening the somewhat villainous characterizations. This once again betrays bias on behalf of the Habsburg family, that B-S himself finally admits to here, at least. I am speaking mainly of Admiral Horthy and Kurt Schuschnigg, who at crucial junctures in post WW I Hungarian and Austrian history, did not step aside in the face of de facto restoration attempts by Otto's father and himself, respectively. Objective histories of these interwar countries, as well as Kurt Schuschnigg's THE BRUTAL TAKEOVER and Horthy's MEMOIRS ("ERINNERUNGEN") would give the reader, at a minimum, a more balanced picture of the difficulties and (sometimes conflicting) motivations faced by these men.

The last part of the book deals with Otto's Pan-Europeanism as well as the ups and downs of his family life and his children's personal and political fortunes. Combined with his efforts earlier, it makes an interesting and convincing case that Otto genuinely is and always was concerned with Europe's well-being in general, and that of his father's former subjects in particular, with recovering the Habsburg crowns a secondary concern.

Brook-Shepherd continues the annoying habit of holding back more info on interesting tidbits that need expounding upon. Two examples from this book are Horthy's insistence on seeing Otto while on his deathbed after WW II, and a visit from Austro-Fascist strongman Prince Starhemberg while in exile to discuss restoration possibilities. One if not both of these incidents were tantalizingly mentioned in footnote in THE LAST EMPRESS, but just as briefly mentioned here. My suspicion continues that these are deliberately not more fully discussed because the details would conflict with other, more speculative parts of the text.

These considerations aside, though--overall, UE is very enjoyable. For the Austrian history buff who craves information about the fallen dynasty after their thrones were lost, Brook-Shepherd remains the only game in town. Fortunately, he doesn't abuse the monopoly. As usual, he delivers a book that due to its style is a very breezy, informative, and sometimes emotional read.

As I said in my review for CREATIVE SCREENWRITING, this book is a one-sided, unfocused conversation that does not live up to its purpose. This is print-on-demand at its worst, a book screaming for the chain saw and vision of an editor. The screenplay itself is not bad for a draft but in no way does this book reveal or clarify the collaborative process in screenwriting. Two thumbs very down.

No, it seems to be true love, if their website can be believed. In spite of the distance and cultural differences, these two have written an engrossing screenplay, as well as a spirited account of their partnership (professional and romantic). They've offhandedly revealed some insights about the creative process, too.

After reading the Zoetrope discussion, I decided to give this book a try, and couldn't put it down. Fearless stuff.

Leider ist das Buch bereits veraltet.Finde interessant, dass sich die Leute für so was interessieren.
Manche amerikanische Leser sollten sich damit abfinden, dass der zweite Weltkrieg zu Ende ist. Haider wird in Österreich auch nicht ernst genommen und seine Partei ist bereits in 2 Parteien zerfallen.
Man kann ihn nur als Politkasperl akzeptieren.
Seit langem ist Österreich kein kriegsführendes Land mehr, im Gegensatz zu den USA. In Wien sind wir sozialistisch regiert und stolz drauf. Freundschaft !!!

This excellent and judicious book opens with the celebrations in 1980 of the 25th anniversary of the State Treaty which had given Austria her independence in 1955. In 1980 the prestige of Austria was at its height. Economically she was remarkably successful; the electorate had rejected communism and embraced western-style democracy; Austria's consensus-based political system was very stable. Above all, in international affairs she followed a policy of "active neutrality": although committed to western values, she had good relations with both the Eastern and the Western bloc, and especially under Bruno Kreisky (foreign minister from 1959 to 1970 and Chancellor from 1970 to 1983), played a mediating role between them and hosted many an East-West conference. Kreisky tried to play a mediating role in the Middle East also, being in 1974 the first western statesman to engage in public discussion with the PLO.

His small country had offered asylum to 180,000 Hungarian refugees in 1956 and to 96,000 Czechs after the collapse of the Prague Spring in 1968. When the Soviet bloc began to allow Jewish emigration to Israel, Austria provided transit facilities for 270,000 Jews; and she did all this without seriously endangering her relationships with the Soviet Union. Kurt Waldheim, a former Austrian foreign minister, had been chosen by East and West alike to be Secretary General of the United Nations: his war-time career had, amazingly, not then been investigated. And the fact that the Jewish Kreisky had been elected Chancellor seemed to acquit Austria of continuing anti-Semitism.

However, many Jewish refugees had rejected invitations to attend the celebrations of 1980; and inside Austria Simon Wiesenthal tried to make the country face up to the guilt it had shared with the Nazis. But in 1980 his was a lonely voice. In 1943 the Allies had recognized the Austrians as Hitler's first victim rather than as his eager collaborators; and this helped the Austrians to present themselves in that light also. So when Jewish organizations began to press for compensation, Austrian governments told them that these demands should be addressed to the successor government in Germany. In 1961 they set up a risibly small fund of just 6 million dollars to pay pensions to some 4,000 Jews.

Austrian democratic governments aimed for consensus even with ex-Nazis. Four members of Kreisky's Cabinet had belonged to the Nazi Party, one of them even to the Waffen-SS. Kreisky had friendly relations with the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party, home for many ex-Nazis. He bitterly resented the agitation of Simon Wiesenthal for trying to disturb this complacent attitude towards the past.

But eventually Wiesenthal gained a wider hearing in the world outside Austria, and the rosy picture of the 1980 celebrations began to be tarnished. In 1983 Kreisky's Socialist Party lost its overall majority; Kreisky retired; and his successor, Fred Sinowatz, actually made a coalition with the Freedom Party. In 1985 his Defence Minister welcomed home with a handshake the former SS-Major Walter Rede, a convicted Nazi war-criminal who, at the behest of both Kreisky's and Sinowatz's governments had been released by the Italians from serving the life-sentence to which he had been sentenced. This created a major storm both inside and outside Austria; but a rising member of the Freedom Party, Jörg Haider, defended Rede as a soldier who had only done his duty.

And then Kurt Waldheim, at the end of his term at the United Nations, became a candidate for the Presidency of Austria. It was only now that rumours surfaced about his Nazi past and presence in Yugoslavia while members of his unit carried out massacres there. During his six-year presidency not only was he himself treated as a pariah by Western governments, but his image rubbed off on the Austrian nation: the world was now alerted to the fact that Austrian politicians had never confronted the past.

Austrians, for their part, initially dug in their heels in bitter resentment. Waldheim's term ended in 1992, but in every election Jörg Haider, now leader of the Freedom Party, gained more votes. As he had praised Hitler's employment policies, inherited property that had been confiscated from Jews, and opposed immigration of foreigners, his rise caused great unease and did further damage to the image of Austria in the rest of the world.

On the other hand, now that the question of Austria's past had been so sharply raised and her standing in the world so besmirched, other Austrians woke up to their responsibilities. When Haider became leader of the Freedom Party in 1986, Chancellor Franz Vranitsky ended his alliance with it and went back into coalition with the Conservatives. A determined effort was now made to confront the past: in 1991 Vranitsky publicly admitted the guilt of many Austrians and apologized for it in the name of the whole nation. Real efforts were now made in the areas of education, memorials, commemorative events, and reparations.

But in the 1999 elections in Austria, Haider's party , with 27% of the vote, came second and held the balance of power between the Socialists (the largest party) and the Conservatives. These two parties had been in coalition continuously since 1986; but that coalition now broke up, and the Conservatives brought the Freedom Party (though not Haider himself) into the government. It seemed that many Austrian were prepared once more to risk their country's good name in the rest of the world, and indeed there was a temporary boycott of bilateral relations between the individual governments of the European Community and the Austrian government. Haider, from outside the Cabinet, tried to force extreme policies on his ministers; but that split his party. The Haiderites resigned; the coalition came to an end; and in the elections of 2002 the Freedom Party's vote dropped from 27% to 10.2%. Has the ghost of Austria's ambivalence towards the past at last been laid to rest?

last year while studying at the IES Vienna program, I was confronted with the new elections and creation of government in Austria. The man at the center of all this attention was Jorg Haider, then the leader of the of the FPO. Hell Pick's book "Guilty Victim" effectively presents the background to the Austria as a paradox in association to Anschluss and WWII. On one ahnd there is the national lie that Austria was the first victim of the Third Reich. This reinforces Austrian indentity in modern Europe. The other side is that Austria bears responsibility for participating in the actions of the third Reich. Austria suffers the dilemma of reconciling with its guilt from the past, so that it may enter into accord with the other nations of the EU. This book is best sumed by her words qouted "Those who choose to forget history are condemned to live through the same again. Those who do not want to know precisely what took place will never be able to learn the lessons of history... We have a duty to understand the past - and as far as possible, to accept wrong-doing and make amends." Pick's purpose in this book is to reconcile with the actions of the nation that she was born into. This book represents a contemporary approach to modern European history in the hopes that lessons will be learned in rder to prevent disasters and distructions of the past. The EU provides potential in the continent reconciling with their actions during the second world war. I believe this book is best for those interested in contemporary Austrian or modern European history. Austria is no longer a nation confused about its national identity but is confronted by the new dominant force in Europe, the EU. Only time will determine the fate of Austria in a larger Europe.