You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Joseph II (1741--90) -- son and eventual successor of Maria Theresa -- has conventionally been seen in the context of the "Enlightened Despot'' reformers. Today's turmoil in his former territories invites a rather different perspective, however, as Joseph grapples with the familiar and intractable problems of creating a viable unitary state out of his multi-national empire in Central Europe. Professor Blanning's brilliant short study, based on extensive archival research, offers a history of the Habsburg monarchy in the eighteenth century, as well as a revaluation of the emperor's complex personality and his ill-fated reform programme.
This volume describes the claustrophobic atmosphere, in which Joseph was trained to rule, and his attempts after 1765 as co-regent with his formidable mother.
It has been said that never has a monarch so narrowly missed "greatness" as did the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II. An idealistic, sincere, and hardworking monarch whose ultilitarian bent, humanitarian instincts, and ambitious programs of reform in every area of public concern have prompted historians to term him an "enlightened despot," "revolutionary Emperor," "philosopher on a throne," and a ruler ahead of his time, Joseph has also been condemned for being insensitive to the phobias and follies of his subjects, essentially unrealistic, almost utopian, in establishing his goals, and dogmatic and overly precipitous in trying to achieve them. Efforts to analyze and explain the actions of this ...
This final volume of Derek Beales's magisterial biography of the emperor Joseph II describes the critical period when he was sole ruler of the Austrian monarchy. Explaining his motivation and showing how his ideas developed, Derek Beales reveals that Joseph left an ineffaceable mark on all his lands.
None