Danubia: A Personal History of Habsburg Europe
For centuries, much of Europe was in the hands of the peculiar Habsburg family. An unstable mixture of wizards, obsessives, melancholics, bores, musicians and warriors, they saw off a number of rivals until finally packing up in 1918. Simon Winder's account of the rule of the Habsburgs plunges the reader into a maelstrom of alchemy, skeletons, jewels, bear-moats, unfortunate marriages - and even a guinea-pig village.