I currently am reading this book, and find it very difficult. The author skips around from one idea to another and its all on the same page. I do not understand his thinking in transforming all the Austrian names into an English version. This loses the historic context of the story and country. Had I know this I probably would not have bought the book. At this point I do not know if I am reading about an Austrian Emperor or an English king since Franz has become Francis. The author did a great harm to the history in doing this. I do regret buying this book and will advise others against it. When you write about history you need to present all the facts, and he did not do this. The names are the first example, skipping around and glossing over events without exploring them deeper is another.

The book is full of information about a very interesting time in history. I didn't mind the jumping around that another reviewer mentioned, but I am COMPLETELY distracted by the author's need to change the names. If you can't handle "Franz Joseph," you should try a little harder. Who is Archduke John? We are lucky he didn't change "Maria Anna" to Maryanne. Dear Author, please give your readers some credit.

This is a very good book. The only reason that I did not give it 5 stars is due to the fact that I am waiting to read several other Palmer titles and then rank against them. My interest in Franz Joesph originated in the start of WWI and how Franz Joseph played into Austia being the main country to instigate the Great War. I was also interested to find out more about the Austrain-Hungary royalty that was famous to intermarry with other nation's royalty. Palmer answer my questions and succeeded in providing a different viewpoint of Franz Joeseph. History books portrayed him as an aged man who was interested in nothing but war and out of touch with the modernizing world. I learned this to be unfounded rhetoric. This book gave an excellent overview of Franz Joesph and his Empire and the inevitable decline and fall of his empire. If you were curious about Franz Joesph or Austrian history, this book is an excellent read.

I am a studend in an open university in greece and i need to read this book to write my woork about nazism in the second world war. i haven t read this book. i want to buy it but your iformations does not help to buy it. i have more than one hour trying to find how i will buy it!

I found this book at the library, used it once and decided to buy it. This dictionary stile book covers everything from the Corn Laws to Bismark. It is worth the money, and it pays for itself over and over. This is a definite "to have" book for students of history.