Popular history of the finest sort . . . an excellent book worthy to rank with Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August and Alan Moorehead’s Gallipoli.” The New York TimesOn June 28, 1914, in the dusty Balkan town of Sarajevo, an assassin fired two shots. In the next five minutes, as the stout middle-aged Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Habsburg, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife bled … and his wife bled to death, a dynastyand with it, a whole way of lifebegan to topple.
In the ages before World War I, four dynastiesthe Habsburg, Hohenzollern, Ottoman, and Romanovdominated much of civilization. Outwardly different, they were at bottom somewhat alike: opulent, grandiose, suffocating in tradition, ostentatiously gilded on the surface and rotting at the core. Worse still, they were tragically out of step with the forces shaping the modern world.
The Fall of the Dynasties covers the period from 1905 to 1922, when these four ruling houses crumbled and fell, destroying old alliances and obliterating old boundaries. World War I was precipitated by their decay and their splintered baroque rubble proved to be a treacherous base for the new nations that emerged from the war. All convulsions of the last half-century,” Taylor writes, stem back to Sarajevo: the two World Wars, the Bolshevik revolution, the rise and fall of Hitler, and the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East. Millions upon millions of deaths can be traced to one or another of these upheavals; all of us who survive have been scarred at least emotionally by them.”
In this classic volume, Taylor traces the origins of the dynasties whose collapse brought the old order crashing down and the events leading to their astonishingly swift downfall.
Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history–books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
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Beautifully written. I have savored this book over and over both for the insightful history and for the delicious descriptive language. The author excels at description of people–often searingly critical, sometimes sardonically funny, sometimes with touching compassion. He also has a gift for summarizing events: He describes pre-revolution Russia as “murder, muddle and Machiavelli,” I recommend this book for people interested in the period, but I also recommend it to people who don’t usually read history, thinking that history is dry or boring
Important history
An informative lesson in history. Amazing that one incident could be responsible for most of the world chaos that we have seen since then! I highly recommend it for world history buffs.
Interesting, informative work on the major dynasties of Europe and the background of World War I and World War II. As many historical works it got a little slow at times, but overall worth reading if you wish to better understand how the war degenerated into two world wars and the scourge of communism arose. Not to mention shedding some light on the sources of some of the problems in the present day Middle East.
Tedious
Perhaps the most interesting thing about Edmond Taylor’s The Fall of the Dynasties is that it was written in 1963 and so provides a different perspective on the events leading up to World War I and surrounding the Russian Revolution than more current works. I did a double take the first time I read about “the last man alive who can tell us…” and certainly in the 60s the story of the Balkans was only half-written.
As the title says, The Fall of the Dynasties is an in-depth look at the final years of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman empires. Actually, it’s an in-depth look at the first three, and a single chapter on the last (which was too bad, because the chapter on the Ottomans was pretty fascinating, but I digress). Taylor explores the broader societal underpinnings that led to war, but also the personal flaws and foibles of the crowned heads, whose decisions – or lack thereof – sent their empires headlong into a war from which neither ruler nor ruled would ever entirely recover. (To that end, the Czarina came off the worst, while the doddering Habsburg, Francis Joseph, appeared mostly to be swept away by events, at least in the final years. Of course, he was an octogenarian on the eve of the war.)
On the whole, I found the book alternated between extremely interesting and sleep-inducing. As I said before, I wanted more of the Ottomans; conversely, I wanted less of the Romanovs – or, more specifically, of the Bolsheviks and what felt like every.single.detail. of the run up to and immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution.
It’s certainly not terrible, and largely still relevant – plus today’s reader has the benefit of the last half-century of history in understanding how the Balkans, Slavic nationalism, and the rise and subsequent fall of the Soviets all played out. That said, there are simply many other more interesting, and possibly complete, books on closely-related topics. The interested reader may want to consider any of the following in lieu of or in addition to The Fall of the Dynasties.
– For an empire-by-empire tour that also considers the roles of the British, American, French, and Japanese empires: 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War.
– A concise look at the the many failures – diplomatic and military – that ultimately led to four years of unrelenting bloodshed across Europe, and eventually the world: The Guns of August.
– For more on the consequences of empire in the Middle East: Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia or Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell (Lawrence and Bell are both British, so there is also quite a bit about the British Empire, but each offers an excellent look at the Middle East before – and after – World War I).
– And, of course, I would be remiss not to add The Beauty and the Sorrow to this list, as it remains, for me, the most in-depth and moving look at World War I imaginable. As a POW remarks, “the great lords have quarreled, and we must pay for it with our blood, our wives and children” (p. 18-19).
(This review was originally published at http://www.thisyearinbooks.com/2018/02/the-fall-of-dynasties-collapse-of-old.html)
Great history of the reasons for the start of WWI. The author is whimsically opinionated and “wordy” most of the time but the subject matter is covered extensively. I wish he had more to say about the Ottomans.
Good education in history.
This is one of the best books I have read on pre-WWI history. It is not dry nor boring but highly anecdotal with marvelous descriptions of many of the key personalities in the three dynastic monarchies.
Very well-written account of a turbulent period of history that is not well understood. Many fascinating details.
This is fascinating! If you love books and/ or words, you will enjoy this.
An comprehensive telling of the incidents that lead to WWI. It is overwhelming when the ridiculous and petty reasons led to the massacre of millions. The egos of the leaders involved made me want to weep.
A really good read that gives good insight into complicated issues of WW1.