Hungary History

This book tells the true story of how a seemingly minor family from a small town in Bavaria, the family of Berthold, Duke of Merania, played an outsized role in European affairs, affecting countries ranging from Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and even Russia and France, and playing a particularly key role in trying to stave off the Mongolian invasion of the 13th century. Berthold’s ancestors are reviewed, and there is discussion of each of the members of the family, at least down to the level of Berthold’s and his wife Agnes’ grandchildren, and beyond in some circumstances. Through this ...

German military history is typically viewed as an inexorable march to the rise of Prussia and the two world wars, the road paved by militarism and the result a specifically German way of war. Peter Wilson challenges this narrative. Looking beyond Prussia to German-speaking Europe across the last five centuries, Wilson finds little unique or preordained in German militarism or warfighting. Iron and Blood takes as its starting point the consolidation of the Holy Roman Empire, which created new mechanisms for raising troops but also for resolving disputes diplomatically.

Marianne Szegedy-Maszák’s parents, Hanna and Aladár, met and fell in love in Budapest in 1940. He was a rising star in the foreign ministry - a vocal anti-Fascist who was in talks with the Allies when he was arrested and sent to Dachau. She was the granddaughter of Manfred Weiss, the industrialist patriarch of an aristocratic Jewish family that owned factories. Though many in the family had converted to Catholicism decades earlier, when the Germans invaded Hungary in March 1944, they were forced into hiding.

From the critically acclaimed historian Victor Sebestyen, the enthralling  account of historical and cultural events that defined Budapest, a unique city on the fault line between East and West in the heart of Europe.

It was during the carnival of 1913 that a young Stalin arrived in Vienna on a mission that would launch him into the upper echelon of Russian revolutionaries, and it was here that he first collided with Trotsky. It was in Vienna that the failed artist Adolf Hitler kept daubing watercolors and spouting tirades at fellow drifters in a flophouse. Here, Archduke Franz Ferdinand had a troubled audience with Emperor Franz Joseph - and soon the bullet that killed the archduke would set off the Great War that would kill 10 million more.

Viennese ideas saturate the modern world. From California architecture to Hollywood Westerns, modern advertising to shopping malls, orgasms to gender confirmation surgery, nuclear fission to fitted kitchens—every aspect of our history, science, and culture is in some way shaped by Vienna. Richard Cockett gives us the entirety of an extraordinary story of how one city made the modern world—and how we all remain inescapably Viennese.

When Austrian President Franz Jonas visited the Vatican in 1971, Pope Paul VI named Austria “the Island of the Blessed”. He did so to emphasize Austria’s steep recovery. Only 25 years had passed since the end of the Second World War, and Austria was already one of the most prosperous European countries. One might argue that Austria was always a rich country, and during the times of its Habsburg rulers, it certainly was. But after the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Austria was lost between two worlds - its German heritage and its multiethnic nation.

The vibrant, sprawling saga of Empress Maria Theresa - one of the most renowned women rulers in history - and three of her extraordinary daughters, including Marie Antoinette, the doomed queen of France.

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was perhaps the most dramatic single event of the Cold War and a major turning point in history. Though it ended unsuccessfully, the spontaneous uprising of Hungarians against their country's Communist party and the Soviet occupation forces in the wake of Stalin's death demonstrated to the world at large the failure of Communism.

Vienna is unique amongst world capitals in its consistent international importance over the centuries. From the ascent of the Habsburgs as Europe's leading dynasty to the Congress of Vienna, which reordered Europe in the wake of Napoleon's downfall, to bridge-building summits during the Cold War, Vienna has been the scene of key moments in world history. The Crossroads of Civilization is a rich and illuminating history of the world capital that has transformed art, culture, and politics.

Anna stopped counting the times she fell. Now she would take a stand... Anna Onisko has grown up under the shadow of her tyrannical stepfather. Now in her teens she is determined to escape him and fulfill her dream of becoming a teacher. But this is Uzhhorod, Czechoslovakia, the year is 1938 and the Hungarian occupation is about to tear Anna's life apart. Through wartime dangers and family betrayal, Anna has to find the strength to make impossible choices and protect those she loves even if it means sacrificing everything she cares about. Based on the true story of a woman of courage.

In autumn 1942, Anna Goldenberg's great-grandparents and one of their sons are deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Hans, their elder son, survives by hiding in an apartment in the middle of Nazi-controlled Vienna. But this is no Anne Frank-like existence; teenage Hans passes time in the municipal library and buys standing-room tickets to the Vienna State Opera. Hans never sees his family again. Goldenberg reconstructs this unique story in magnificent reportage.

The Austro-Hungarian army that marched east and south to confront the Russians and Serbs in the opening campaigns of World War I had a glorious past but a pitiful present. Speaking a mystifying array of languages and lugging outdated weapons, the Austrian troops were hopelessly unprepared for the industrialized warfare that would shortly consume Europe.

February 20, 1933: on an unremarkable day during a harsh Berlin winter, a meeting of twenty-four German captains of industry and senior Nazi dignitaries is being held in secret in the plush lounges of the Reichstag. They are there to "stump up" funding for the accession to power of the National Socialist Party and its fearsome Chancellor. This inaugural scene sets the tone of consent which will lead to the worst possible repercussions.

Two manuscripts in one audiobook: History of Austria and The Habsburg Empire. When Austrian President Franz Jonas visited the Vatican in 1971, Pope Paul VI named Austria “The Island of the Blessed". He did so to emphasize Austria’s steep recovery. Only 25 years had passed since the end of the Second World War, and Austria was already one of the most prosperous European countries.

In the mid-1950's were tumultuous for the Soviet Bloc. Several countries saw Stalin’s death and the apparent change of direction, even the softening of policy under Khrushchev, as an opportunity to pursue a reformist path...the uprising with the greatest impact on the bulk of the Cold War took place in Hungary in 1956, when protestors took to the streets to demand freedom from tyranny and a greater say in their own destiny. When the Hungarians rose up against the status quo in October 1956, they were met with a brutal response from Moscow.

In the best-selling Warriors of God and Dogs of God, James Reston Jr. limned two epochal conflicts between Islam and Christendom. Here he examines the ultimate battle in that centuries-long war, which found Europe at its most vulnerable and Islam on the attack. This drama was propelled by two astonishing young sovereigns: Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Turkish sultan Suleyman the Magnificent. Though they represented two colliding worlds, they were remarkably similar.

In Twelve Days: The Story of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising, Victor Sebestyen vividly recreates not only the days of the uprising but the events, meetings and days that led up to it. He goes back to give us snapshots of seminal moments in history that would decide Hungary's fate, such as the October 9, 1944, meeting in the Kremlin with Churchill or October 15, 1949, a day that marked the execution of Laszlo Rajk, a fierce Stalinist and one of the chief architect's of Hungary's police state and the beginning of the Bolsheviks starting "to devour [their] own children".

The Habsburg family ruled central Europe since the early medieval times to World War I, but they still exist as one of the most prestigious Austrian families. To keep themselves in such high positions, the Habsburgs had to develop unique strategies to fight their political enemies. They wanted to rule the world and saw themselves as the only dynasty worthy of such divine right. To keep the family pure, they often married within their family, which resulted in a very weak genetic pool and many mental and physical problems.

Hitler offers a deeply learned and radically revisionist biography, arguing that the dictator's main strategic enemy, from the start of his political career in the 1920s, was not communism or the Soviet Union, but capitalism and the United States. Whereas most historians have argued that Hitler underestimated the American threat, Simms shows that Hitler embarked on a preemptive war with the United States precisely because he considered it such a potent adversary.