The Middle Kingdoms: A New History of Central Europe

Historian Rady (The Hapsburgs) offers an ambitious survey of Central Europe from antiquity to the present day. Focusing on the area “now included in modern-day Germany, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Slovenia, and western Romania,” with forays into “the territory of today’s Ukraine, Croatia, Switzerland, and the Baltic states,” Rady draws succinct, clear distinctions between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, among other social, religious, ethnic, and political influences, and stuffs the narrative with valuable context and vivid character sketches. For example, he notes that 16th-century religious reformer Martin Luther wrote his “scabrous and funny” sermons to be read aloud, since fewer than one in 10 Germans was literate at the time, and that before Otto von Bismarck became chancellor of the German Empire in 1871, “the only personal ambition he disclosed was to drink in his lifetime ten thousand bottles of champagne.” Rady also introduces readers to lesser-known figures, including 19th-century Hungarian-Croatian politician Charles Khuen-Héderváry. At times, Rady’s exploration of key events, including the 1968 Prague Spring and its crushing by Soviet troops, feels somewhat cursory, but he covers a vast swath of geographical and chronological ground, and his evocative prose renders this complex history accessible. It’s a boon for anyone seeking insights into Central Europe’s influence on the modern world. (May)