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For half a millennium, the Habsburgs were at the heart of western history. Their long, lugubrious faces and watery blue eyes stared out of myriad portraits, seemingly unchanged from generation to generation. They were a diverse, disparate, often warring tribe, but ultimately all fell under the controlling discipline of their chief. They suffered catastrophe, sudden death and moral and political failure that would have destroyed other royal houses, but, though they no longer rule, they remain an important and influential family; and they believe they may be called upon to rule again.Andrew Wheatcroft uncovers the Habsburgs' own scale of values, their concerns, their totems and their fetishes. He explores how and why the Habsburgs have survived and how they are now moving confidently towards a new century, as ever imbued with their own curious and convoluted version of eternal life. This marvellous new work, the product of twenty years' study and research, defines the true nature of a unique Imperial dynasty.

"The result is an attractive and intelligent book...To the extent that it is possible to do so in a single volume, he provides a sense of the collective identity and self-image of the dynasty while neither excluding individual personality nor ignoring sharp distinctions between eras and their distinctive world-views."

Dominic Lieven, Times Literary Supplement, 02/16/1996

The Habsburgs: Embodying Empire: Search Results