The Viennese: Splendor, Twilight, and Exile

Stated First Edition, October 1988. 346pp. w/pages of photo inserts. Former library copy, bright, clean & tight, appears unread, in Very Good+ condition. "Few cities in history have so captured the world's imagination as the fabled city of Vienna. This uniquely European venue has a schizophrenic past--the birthplace of both the waltz and psychoanalysis, Zionism and Nazism, and home to Mozart, Beethoven, Adolf Hitler, Marie Antoinette, Leon Trotsky, Sigmund Freud, Martin Buber, Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang, Franz Kafka, and countless other artists, writers, scientists, philosophers, composers, madmen, and saints. [] Veteran New York Times correspondent Paul Hofmann, brings this enchanted land of contradictions vibrantly to life in this first-of-its-kind sociohistorical analysis covering two thousand years of Viennese history, politics, and culture. From the reign of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius to the controversial rise of President Kurt Waldheim, THE VIENNESE is a richly detailed portrait of a city with untold influence upon the development of Western civilization as we know it today." [jacket copy] "Hofmann, a former New York Times bureau chief in Rome, has written a penetrating, engaging, vivid cultural history of his native Vienna, focusing mainly on the fame, foibles, and fortunes of its cultural elite in music, art, and literature, architecture and psychology. Hofmann limns the ambivalent tone of Viennese high society, with its gaiety and extraordinary talent, punctuated by depression, decadence, and intrigue. His book evocatively captures the neurotic soul of a city which repeatedly produced human genius and yet was so enthusiastically won over to Nazism. Illuminating; heartily recommended for students of European history and culture."--Library Journal. Very good hardcover w/sharp corners & crisp edges, a square & tight binding, wrapped in a Good price-clipped jacket w/slight edgewear.…