Austria Books

The presentation is great - I thought this would be a treat. Great binding, nice ribbon, and maybe this would make a good introduction to Klimt's erotic figure-work BUT . . .! There are only 56 drawings, most of them have been seen and reproduced in other books. An index gives specific information about the images but since the pages are unnumbered, good luck trying to match a drawing with its description.

The drawings are not in chronological order so you can't see Klimt's style change. The drawings are cut off and cropped sloppily and set on the page arbitrarily; some in the middle of the page, others shoved to the top or bottom for no particular reason. Actual image quality varies since the drawings are taken from a variety of sources; some look as if they were hastily run through Photoshop to clean them up. (But if you tell this was done, if you can SEE the digital manipulation, that doesn't say much, now does it?) Judging by the screen dots and other indicators some drawings show, a lot of these drawings were scanned from other books, run through a Photoshop-type of program to fill out the page - and not very diligently. I think the publishers were trying to be artistic. Or something. They've failed miserably.

Thames & Hudson did an Egon Schiele book a while ago that shows you CAN do this kind of thing well, at a great price and with tons of illustrations, not just 56. In April of 2006, they are going to release a Klimt book. Skip this feeble Prestel book and wait for the T&H book.

One last observation about the book at hand: the drawing on page 34 is badly placed at the bottom of the page . . . and is UPSIDE DOWN.

I bought this book because I saw the exhibit at the Musee Maillot in Paris in 2005 and stupidly didn't buy their book of the drawings as I thought I could buy it here it here in the US. (Which isn't possible). This is an extremely disappointing pick of very few of his drawings, all of which were certainly not my favorites. There were so many which better demonstrated his skill in catching the expression, the sexuality and the beauty in very few lines I am surprised at all the inclusions and the exclusions. In my mind he picked the weaker drawings. And yes, they didn't even catch an obvious drawing inserted upside down, which unfortunately states a lot since there are so few of them.

Ninety per cent of the material in this book is lifted from works by the likes of A J P Taylor, and any serious historian would be well advised to buy a book by a better historian than Tim Chapman.

I have read many books on the Empress Elizabeth of Austria but this one is the worst of all. The author writes so incredible stories it's a shame. The dates are inexact too. A novel would be much better. The poor Empress if you believe this woman passed half of her life running away with men, hating her husband etc... One star is even a lot. It would be a pity to read, but if you are a collector maybe you'll like, even with that in mind I would never recommend it.

If you're looking for a little picture book with no biographical substance then this is the book for you. This book has nothing to offer by way of knowledge or insight into Elisabeth's character. What it boiled down to was adverstisement for Austrian products that in one way or another still feature Elisabeth's portrait on them; i.e., violet candies or a cake that bears her portrait on its tin. A complete waste of time and money for any serious historian.

There's not as much written in English on the luckless Archduke Franz Ferdinand as there should be, so I acquired this novel with considerable anticipation. However, I was quite disappointed with the slapdash approach to the crucial details of the Sarajevo tragedy. The fate meted out to Count Franz Harrach, who in real life was standing on the running board of the archducal automobile next to his principal when the fatal shots rang out, is particularly egregious. Powell has Harrach being killed in the explosion of Cabrinovic's bomb, which is simply nonsense. The historical fact is that nobody was critically injured in that blast; the most seriously hurt, one Lieutenant Colonel Erik van Merizzi, sustained facial wounds but was treated and released the same day; it was he that Franz Ferdinand was on his way to see when he was murdered. NOT recommended.

Its only a chapter of the book - Fontana Economic History of Europe . And the whole book costs $4-5 only from other Amazon sellers.
Buy the book -- Vol 4 - Emergence of Industrial Societies. ( and you will get chapters on many other states too.)

Reader be warned - this is a text book that examines a very narrow topic and for 99 out of 100 readers, will be incredibly boring.
At first, I thought the topic of examining American influence on the modern and post-modern German arts and social culture may be interesting but Gemunden's drab writing quickly ended any notions of that.
Gemunden breaks the book down into three major sections:
-" Between Avant-Garde and Popular Culture" which delves into the influence of Andy Warhol's work among a number of German artists.
- "Hollywood Made in Bavaria" which examines influences on Rainer Werner Fassbinder's and Herbert Achternbusch's projects.
- "Subjectivities in Motion" which looks into the films of Peter Handke, Wim Wenders and Monika Treut.
Although these subjects may seem intriguing, Gemunden's aimless wandering writing style will quickly turn the reader off.
I can only recommend this book to one kind of reader - a college student who is writing a paper on this very subject. Although it's as tough a text book to get through as I've ever read, there would be pertinent information for a researcher who is tackling the task of comparing the Cold War American Pop Culture influence on prominent German film makers. And for any student assigned this as a text book, I feel sorry for you. This will definitely be one you will sell back.

50 years ago a performance of any of Mahler's musical works was extremely rare. Now, it seems no scrap of information about him is unworthy of publication. This book draws together the letters preserved at the University of Western Ontario and a few others from various collections, running from Mahler's student days in Vienna in the 1870s until the year of his death, 1911. Most of the letters are addressed to his sister, Justine Mahler-Rose, who lived with her brother a number of years before their respective marriages within one day of each other in 1902. Although one must appreciate the immense amount of scholarly work by Professor McClatchie necessary to translate, annotate and date the often undated correspondence, their content is very commonplace. Although there is the occasional interesting reference to personalities and events in Mahler's artistic career, these are infrequent and rarely detailed. There is no insight at all into his personal creative life. The most frequent topics of the letters are family health matters and money. In the book's 399 pages of text, he probably asks Justine a hundred times how many Marks or Florins he needs to send her on the first of the month. Gustav was the only one of the surviving Mahler siblings to be steadily employed, and he all but supported his two brothers and two sisters for years after their parents' deaths. Most of the letters are so mundane that no one would spend a minute with them if they were not written by Mahler, and the few interesting revelations in them have already been well covered in H. L. de la Grange's ongoing four-volume saga of the composer's life. By comparison, the recently published volume of his letters to his wife is far more insightful for someone seeking Mahler's private persona. The text is nearly error free, well footnoted, and buttressed by an identification guide to persons mentioned in the letters, but falls down in the picture section: a studio photo of Otto Mahler, who committed suicide in 1895, is labeled "Gustav Mahler," and a snapshot labeled as his wife, Alma, surely is of Justine. An index is provided. Only the most dedicated Mahlerian need bother, especially since the disparity between the information the book contains and its cover price is really immense.

This book had at least 30 pages missing. The parts that I read is very good, bit whith the missing pages its worthless. Do not buy this item, it might be incomplete.

Such a tiresome bore. Find other things to do with your time than read this. More nonsensical texts are rarely conceived.