Although composed against the backdrop of Nazi ascendancy (roughly from 1934 to 1942), which forced the Jewish Zweig into exile, the author's real elegy is for the Austria-Hungary of 1914, before the Great War wrecked its civilisation and Europe's alongside it (Zweig, a pacifist, spent the war in Switzerland). Sent off to the publisher from Brazil the day before Zweig and his wife killed themselves, this is one of history's most moving suicide notes. It was written, I am told on good authority, under the influence of champagne, which must be why the tone so perfectly matches the subject: exuberant, learned, urbane, slightly tipsy, surprisingly robust, and yet wracked with a sense of impending doom. The essay on Austria-Hungary is the centerpiece of the book, and well worth the price. And yet his first and (to my mind) truest love was for the ill-fated Dual Monarchy uniting Austria and Hungary. Stone is best known as a Turcophile who cut his teeth on Russian history. It might seem strange to begin with what sounds like a simple history textbook. Europe Transformed 1878-1919 by Norman Stone These are the books which bring me back to the world of the Habsburg dynasty, wherever I happen to be. But I came away with an enduring fascination with the strange, lost world of Austria-Hungary. I don't think I made an impression on him he probably would have been equally happy chattering away to anyone else.
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