![]() ![]() Even with modern communications, most of the fashionable views of today remain ill understood by the majority.Ĭonsider for instance, the horrors of French and Bolshevik revolutions and what the intellectuals say what they were supposed to be. ![]() In addition, he rejects the historians’ mythical belief that the majority of ‘common people’ shared the views of their contemporary intellectuals which is more than childish. Unlike the usual reductive approach taken by the academic historians, his work emphasises the danger of our attributing intentions and purposes to people whose lives were very different from ours. Winder’s irreverent and humorous analysis of the Habsburg Empire is not only very enjoyable, but it is also very cogent. Thrillingly informative, Danubia is a treat that listeners will be eager to dip into. But this is a history dominated above all by Winder's energy and curiosity. ![]() In his survey of the centuries of often incompetent Habsburg rule which have continued to shape the fate of Central Europe, Winder does not shy away from the horrors, railing against the effects of nationalism, recounting the violence that was often part of life. Winder's approach is friendly, witty, personal this is a narrative that, while erudite and well researched, prefers to be discursive and anecdotal. Their unprecedented rule is the focus of Simon Winder's vivid third book, Danubia. From the end of the Middle Ages to the First World War, Europe was dominated by one family: the Habsburgs. ![]()
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