I've long aspired to write a book like this. Think of Hemingway with the occasional understated joke. Tim's picked the right style: rich enough to delight, but spare enough to let the story shine through. Did I mention said prince liked to dress as a woman, consort with sailors, and slum in Montmartre? Tim's picked the right voice: witty, knowing, and ironic, but never sarcastic. How'd he do it? Well, Tim's picked the right subject: an Eastern European prince with dreams of uniting a "nation" that didn't exist. He's written a serious history book that is enjoyable to read. We expect all this from a top-notch historian working in a field he knows like the back of his hand. The book is about empires becoming nations, an ongoing process in Russia, China, and India. Tim's told a story that no one has told before.
Tim's read all the literature and visited all the archives. It's called The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of A Habsburg Archduke (Basic, 2008). Played out in Europe's glittering capitals and bloody battlefields, in extravagant ski resorts and dank prison cells, The Red Prince captures an extraordinary moment in the history of Europe, in which the old order of the past was giving way to an undefined future-and in which everything, including identity itself, seemed up for grabs.Tim Snyder has written a great book. When this dream collapsed he became, by turns, an ally of German imperialists, a notorious French lover, an angry Austrian monarchist, a calm opponent of Hitler, and a British spy against Stalin. Coming of age during the First World War, Wilhelm repudiated his family to fight alongside Ukrainian peasants in hopes that he would become their king.
Snyder offers an indelible portrait of an aristocrat whose life personifies the wrenching upheavals of the first half of the twentieth century, as the rule of empire gave way to the new politics of nationalism.
In this exhilarating narrative history, prize-winning historian Timothy D.
He spoke the Italian of his archduchess mother, the German of his archduke father, the English of his British royal friends, the Polish of the country his father wished to rule, and the Ukrainian of the land Wilhelm wished to rule himself. He could handle a saber, a pistol, a rudder, or a golf club he handled women by necessity and men for pleasure. Wilhelm Von Habsburg wore the uniform of the Austrian officer, the court regalia of a Habsburg archduke, the simple suit of a Parisian exile, the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and, every so often, a dress.
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