THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF HABSBURG

Most historians when writing of the Habsburg Monarch treat it none too kindly. More often than not they have aligned themselves with the peoples of the Empire and have been most unsympathetic and at times harsh to the rulers who attempted to contain these peoples. Edward Cranshaw has succeeded in reversing this ""policy"" in his superb, detailed but very readable political and social history of the waning years of an ancient European dynasty. An able intelligence is at work in this epochal portrait of disintegrating power.