99 books like Hungary between Two Empires 1526-1711

By Geza Palffy,

Here are 99 books that Hungary between Two Empires 1526-1711 fans have personally recommended if you like Hungary between Two Empires 1526-1711. Shepherd is a community of 10,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Gambling with Armageddon: Nuclear Roulette from Hiroshima to the Cuban Missile Crisis

László Borhi Author Of Hungary in the Cold War, 1945-1956: Between the United States and the Soviet Union

From my list on the search for truth in history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I come from a small country, Hungary, the past of which was consciously falsified in the political system under which I grew up. Some chapters of it, like the cold war period, Soviet rule, the revolution of 1956 couldn't even be discussed. I was lucky because communism collapsed and archives were gradually opened just as I started my career as a historian. Books on international history are usually written from the perspective of the powerful states, I was interested in looking at this story from the perspective of the small guy. Writing this book was both a professional challenge and a personal matter for me. I'm currently a professor at Indiana University-Bloomington.

László's book list on the search for truth in history

László Borhi Why did László love this book?

I was privileged to know Marty Sherwin in person. He was the friendliest person ever with a tremendous sense of humour – and a magnificent, honest scholar.

He was the friendliest person ever with a tremendous sense of humour – and a magnificent, honest scholar. History, as Paul Ricoeur has reminded, is not a record to be played. The Cold War nuclear standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union, and mainly, the Cuban missile crisis did not have to end as they did, peacefully.

When two A bombs were dropped on Japan in 1945, a genie was released that the world will not be able to get rid of any time soon. Martin J. Sherwin, the doyen of American nuclear historians always argued that this did not have to be so. Nuclear technology could have been placed under international supervision and arms race and proliferation could have been…

By Martin J. Sherwin,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Gambling with Armageddon as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of American Prometheus comes the first effort to set the Cuban Missile Crisis, with its potential for nuclear holocaust, in a wider historical narrative of the Cold War—how such a crisis arose, and why at the very last possible moment it didn't happen.

In this groundbreaking look at the Cuban Missile Crisis, Martin Sherwin not only gives us a riveting sometimes hour-by-hour explanation of the crisis itself, but also explores the origins, scope, and consequences of the evolving place of nuclear weapons in the post-World War II world. Mining new sources and materials, and going…


Book cover of The Lights That Failed: European International History 1919-1933

László Borhi Author Of Hungary in the Cold War, 1945-1956: Between the United States and the Soviet Union

From my list on the search for truth in history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I come from a small country, Hungary, the past of which was consciously falsified in the political system under which I grew up. Some chapters of it, like the cold war period, Soviet rule, the revolution of 1956 couldn't even be discussed. I was lucky because communism collapsed and archives were gradually opened just as I started my career as a historian. Books on international history are usually written from the perspective of the powerful states, I was interested in looking at this story from the perspective of the small guy. Writing this book was both a professional challenge and a personal matter for me. I'm currently a professor at Indiana University-Bloomington.

László's book list on the search for truth in history

László Borhi Why did László love this book?

This is a book for academics, college professors, graduate students, and those members of the educated public who are interested in historical scholarship at its best.

This, at first sight intimidatingly large volume makes a deep dive into the diplomatic history of the first decade after the first world war. All angles, diplomatic, intelligence, and economic are examined from the perspective of the actors of the international stage, large and small alike.

The magnitude of Steiner’s work can be compared to Gibbon’s opus on the Roman Empire – it will remain a classic in the genre. It took a lifetime to piece together the puzzle of why the stabilization of Europe in the aftermath of the hitherto most destructive war in history.

This book – and its sequel, The Triumph of the Dark is a must for those who are interested in understanding the vast complexity of international politics as…

By Zara Steiner,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Lights That Failed as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The peace treaties represented an almost impossible attempt to solve the problems caused by a murderous world war. In The Lights that Failed: European International History 1919-1933, part of the Oxford History of Modern Europe series, Steiner challenges the common assumption that the Treaty of Versailles led to the opening of a second European war. In a radically original way, this book characterizes the 1920s not as a frustrated prelude to a second global conflict
but as a fascinating decade in its own right, when politicians and diplomats strove to re-assemble a viable European order. Steiner examines the efforts that…


Book cover of On Looking into the Abyss: Untimely Thoughts on Culture and Society

László Borhi Author Of Hungary in the Cold War, 1945-1956: Between the United States and the Soviet Union

From my list on the search for truth in history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I come from a small country, Hungary, the past of which was consciously falsified in the political system under which I grew up. Some chapters of it, like the cold war period, Soviet rule, the revolution of 1956 couldn't even be discussed. I was lucky because communism collapsed and archives were gradually opened just as I started my career as a historian. Books on international history are usually written from the perspective of the powerful states, I was interested in looking at this story from the perspective of the small guy. Writing this book was both a professional challenge and a personal matter for me. I'm currently a professor at Indiana University-Bloomington.

László's book list on the search for truth in history

László Borhi Why did László love this book?

This book is the symbol of intellectual brilliance and honesty and one which argues that if we are to preserve western civilization, we must restore historical truth as the center of historical inquiry.

I will advertise this magnificent book with a quote: “Looking into the most fearsome abysses of modern times, the historian sees not beasts but faceless bureaucrats, not corpses but statistics, not willful acts of brutality and murder but the banal routine of everyday life, not gas chambers and gulags but military-industrial-geopolitical complexes.” The reader also will learn why. 

The reader also will learn why footnotes disappeared from history books. A book to be enjoyed and savored when in a contemplative mood.

By Gertrude Himmelfarb,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked On Looking into the Abyss as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Discusses the intellectual arrogance and spiritual impoverishment at the heart of structuralism, deconstructionism, and postmodernism, and shows how they have led to the belittling of the Holocaust


Book cover of History and Strategy

László Borhi Author Of Hungary in the Cold War, 1945-1956: Between the United States and the Soviet Union

From my list on the search for truth in history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I come from a small country, Hungary, the past of which was consciously falsified in the political system under which I grew up. Some chapters of it, like the cold war period, Soviet rule, the revolution of 1956 couldn't even be discussed. I was lucky because communism collapsed and archives were gradually opened just as I started my career as a historian. Books on international history are usually written from the perspective of the powerful states, I was interested in looking at this story from the perspective of the small guy. Writing this book was both a professional challenge and a personal matter for me. I'm currently a professor at Indiana University-Bloomington.

László's book list on the search for truth in history

László Borhi Why did László love this book?

For readers who are interested in learning how to think about international relations, strategy, security, and history.

The collection of essays discusses US foreign policy, nuclear politics, and the Cold War. My favorite is Trachtenberg’s critical reassessment of the origins of the First World War, a destructive conflict no one wanted to happen but still walked into.

I always assign this book to my students.

By Marc Trachtenberg,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked History and Strategy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This work is a powerful demonstration of how historical analysis can be brought to bear on the study of strategic issues, and, conversely, how strategic thinking can help drive historical research. Based largely on newly released American archives, History and Strategy focuses on the twenty years following World War II. By bridging the sizable gap between the intellectual world of historians and that of strategists and political scientists, the essays here present a fresh and unified view of how to explore international politics in the nuclear era. The book begins with an overview of strategic thought in America from 1952…


Book cover of The Radetzky March

Anton Gill Author Of The Journey Back from Hell

From my list on the best I have read so far.

Why am I passionate about this?

I think Zoroastrianism got it right: there's a constant knife-edge balance between good and evil, with neither quite winning; but we shouldn't be overconfident that one day that balance will tip to the bad side because that is always more dominant. Art in all forms has served dictators and tyrants as well as criticised them; few works have ever actually changed anything. If they have, it's been through literature most of all. Zola's 'j'accuse' and Sinclair's 'the jungle' are two obvious examples, but all the books I have chosen are powerful tools for self–examination, and as someone who is particularly interested in man's inhumanity to man I have found them useful. 

Anton's book list on the best I have read so far

Anton Gill Why did Anton love this book?

Joseph Roth, an alcoholic, itinerant journalist who never had a proper home, was a friend of Stefan Zweig but enjoyed nothing like his success; yet I think this is one of the greatest neglected novels ever written. The last, collapsing days of the Austro–Hungarian empire are depicted through a family saga whose characters burn themselves onto one's mind. Claustrophobic, unremitting, reminiscent in some ways of Kafka at his best, for my money this knocks Zweig's Beware of Pity into a cocked hat! A depiction of a degenerate society at its last gasp surely also has strong parallels with the modern world.

By Joseph Roth, Joachim Neugroschel (translator),

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Radetzky March as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE RADETSKY MARCH is subtle and touching study of family life at the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Writing in the traditional form of the family saga, Roth nevertheless manages to bring to his story a completely individual manner which gives at the same time the detailed and intimate portrait of a life and the wider panorama of a failing dynasty. Not yet well known in English-speaking countries, Joseph Roth is one of the most distinguished Austrian writers of our century, worthy to be bracketed with Musil and Kraus.


Book cover of Canone Inverso

Gerald Elias Author Of Cloudy with a Chance of Murder: A Daniel Jacobus Mystery

From my list on mysteries in the world of classical music.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve spent a lifetime as a professional classical musician and a mystery reader. Starting with Hardy Boys adventures at the same time I started playing the violin, my intertwined love affairs with music and the mystery genre continue to this day. As a long-time member of major American symphony orchestras, I’ve heard and experienced so many stories about the dark corners of the classical music world that they could fill a library. It gives me endless pleasure to read other mystery authors’ take on this fascinating, semi-cloistered world and to share some of my own tales with the lay public in my Daniel Jacobus mystery series.

Gerald's book list on mysteries in the world of classical music

Gerald Elias Why did Gerald love this book?

Intense and intricate with complex human interactions subjected to the forces of history and destiny, Canone Inverso is both literary fiction and mystery. This gripping tale of evolving relationships centers around the field of classical music and a particular violin. With the setting in Germany, Austria, and Hungary during the turbulent 1930s and ’40s, a brilliant, working-class young violinist is secluded in a prison-like music conservatory with an aristocratic boy who befriends him. Gradually, their bond is severely tested. What is genius? What is friendship? What is the price paid for beauty and greatness? These are some of the issues we’re confronted with in this riveting novel.

By Paolo Maurensig,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Canone Inverso as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

When a strangely carved violin appears at auction in London, one bidder is prepared to pay any price to have it in his possession again. Many years before, two boys were united in their lust for music; how they were ultimately divided is revealed as the story journeys to pre-Nazi Vienna.


Book cover of Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary at War, 1914-1918

Peter H. Wilson Author Of Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-Speaking Peoples since 1500

From my list on German military history saying something different.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been drawn to the history of the German lands ever since I opened a historical atlas as a child and wondered why the middle of Europe was a colorful patchwork compared to the solid blocks depicting other countries. I then wondered how the people living under this multitude of authorities could manage their affairs, resolve differences, and defend themselves against each other and outsiders. Digging deeper into these questions has unearthed fascinating stories, not all of them pleasant, but which also shed light on the complexities of our shared existence. 

Peter's book list on German military history saying something different

Peter H. Wilson Why did Peter love this book?

After 1918, many German and Austrian Habsburg officers blamed their defeat on being ‘stabbed in the back’ by civilian ‘shirkers’, leftists, and (in the Habsburg case) fractious nationalists.

Both states indeed failed to manage their home fronts but, as Alexander Watson shows in his compelling account of this titanic conflict, there were far more complex reasons for the war’s outcome, not least the willingness of the high command in both states to embark on a conflict they had no realistic chance of winning.

By Alexander Watson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Ring of Steel as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Sunday Times History Book of the Year 2014

Winner of the 2014 Wolfson History Prize, the 2014 Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military History, the Society for Military History's 2015 Distinguished Book Award and the 2015 British Army Military Book of the Year

For the empires of Germany and Austria-Hungary the Great War - which had begun with such high hopes for a fast, dramatic outcome - rapidly degenerated as invasions of both France and Serbia ended in catastrophe. For four years the fighting now turned into a siege on a quite monstrous scale. Europe became the focus of fighting of a…


Book cover of The Vanishing of Class 3B

Angela Hodgkins Author Of Strength-based Practice with Children and Families

From my list on why working with young children is awesome.

Why am I passionate about this?

My professional background is in working with children, my career began as an NNEB nursery nurse and I did many jobs (nanny, childminder, preschool, reception class, after school club, primary school, special school, and in learning support). I then trained as a teacher of adults and went on to be a college lecturer. I am now a senior university lecturer, but my heart has always been in the early years. I am passionate about highlighting the incredible work that is going on in the early years and in schools and have a strength-based, empowering, and optimistic view, which I try to instill in my students. Working with young children is a privilege and a joy.

Angela's book list on why working with young children is awesome

Angela Hodgkins Why did Angela love this book?

This is not a book about working with children! This is a thriller that I really enjoyed, and which I recommend to anyone who likes a good ‘whodunnit’.

A group of school children set out on a class trip and them and their minibus vanish. I read the book in a couple of days, which is always a sign that I am engrossed. There are all sorts of twists and red herrings. An easy to read, exciting story. 

By Jackie Kabler,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Vanishing of Class 3B as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'An ingenious plot, a captivating cast of character, and twists and turns that kept me guessing to the last page, loved it!' Amanda Reynolds

From the bestselling author of The Perfect Couple, Am I Guilty?, The Happy Family and The Murder List, comes the most engrossing thriller of 2023.

One spring morning, a bus full of children and their teachers from a Cotswolds primary school head off on a much-anticipated day trip.

But as night falls and the well-heeled parents - one or two of them famous, as well as wealthy - wait at the school to collect their weary…


Book cover of Masks and Shadows

Llinos Cathryn Thomas Author Of A Duet for Invisible Strings

From my list on mixing music and romance.

Why am I passionate about this?

It’s often been said of musical theatre that the point when the characters begin to sing is the point their emotions become too much to express in words alone. I think that’s one reason I’m so obsessed with books about people connecting over music, art, and performance—it allows for so much passion and intensity. Having sung and played instruments over the years, I know how powerful it can feel to make music with other people, even when you’re not in love! These days, though, I spend more time reading and writing about music than I do playing it.

Llinos' book list on mixing music and romance

Llinos Cathryn Thomas Why did Llinos love this book?

This is a comfort read I come back to again and again. It’s a historical fantasy filled with political intrigue and with multiple overlapping storylines, and I revel in the rich historical detail of 18th-century Austria. But the heart of the novel is the romance between timid young widow Charlotte von Steinbeck and charismatic castrato Carlo Morelli. Both outsiders in their own ways, they’re brought together by a shared appreciation of music, and their relationship gives both of them the courage to push back against the narrow expectations imposed on them by society.

By Stephanie Burgis,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Masks and Shadows as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The year is 1779, and Carlo Morelli, the most renowned castrato singer in Europe, has been invited as an honored guest to Eszterháza Palace. With Carlo in Prince Nikolaus Esterházy's carriage, ride a Prussian spy and one of the most notorious alchemists in the Habsburg Empire. Already at Eszterháza is Charlotte von Steinbeck, the very proper sister of Prince Nikolaus's mistress. Charlotte has retreated to the countryside to mourn her husband's death. Now, she must overcome the ingrained rules of her society in order to uncover the dangerous secrets lurking within the palace's golden walls. Music, magic, and blackmail mingle…


Book cover of Life Is Better When You Draw It

Taria Dawson Author Of The Beginner's Guide to Urban Sketching: Everything You Need to Know to Capture Your Favorite Places in Ink and Watercolor

From my list on books to inspire your sketchy adventures.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been sketching the world around me since 2014 after discovering one or two of the books on this list and feeling inspired to do the same. I have travelled and sketched my way through many countries and in 2020, started a blog called Urban Sketching World, sharing tips and tricks I have learnt along the way. This expanded to a YouTube channel called Taria’s Sketchy Adventures, and I am proud to say I have taught hundreds (possibly thousands) of people how to pick up a sketchbook and start recording their own sketchy adventures. I now have my own book published called The Beginners Guide to Urban Sketching.

Taria's book list on books to inspire your sketchy adventures

Taria Dawson Why did Taria love this book?

Koosje is an incredible art educator, and I was so excited to see she had created a book. This book is super thick and juicy. She shares her sketches from her life, along with exercises and inspiration on how to do the same.

I have followed Koosje for many years, and I love her lighthearted “anyone can do it” approach to teaching and inspiring others to keep a sketchbook of their life. I often return to this book to look through Koosje’s sketches and remind myself of both the value and pure joy sketching your life can bring.

By Koosje Koene, Suzan Colon (editor), Tosca Lindeboom (editor)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Life Is Better When You Draw It as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The moments of our lives are precious, but they pass so quickly. Drawing these moments—from special trips to our daily coffee—is a way to not only slow down time, but to celebrate it. Capturing in a sketchbook what we see in front of us turns the everyday into the extraordinary. And you don’t need to be born with talent to make art! Artist Koosje Koene has shown thousands of people all over the world the simple, immensely satisfying techniques that can get anyone started on a lifetime of fulfilling fun making art. You don’t need to have an art school…


5 book lists we think you will like!

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