Pieter M. Judson, “The Habsburg Empire: A New History” (Harvard UP, 2016)

Pieter Judson established himself as one of the top scholars of the East Central Europe with his first two books Exclusive Revolutionaries (University of Michigan Press, 1996) and Guardians of the Nation (Harvard University Press, 2006). His latest book, The Habsburg Empire: A New History (Harvard University Press, 2016) provides scholars with the first major general history of the Empire since a new wave of scholarship began chipping away at the myths built up in various national historiographies. Not only does his book offer a reappraisal of Habsburg history that incorporate concepts like national indifference, but more than previous histories it gets out of the purely political realm to look at economic changes. In so doing beyond offering a new more nuanced understanding of how and why Austria-Hungary fell apart, he also suggests the the twenty years before 1848 were much more interesting than the conventional narrative has allowed. It was a pleasure to speak with Pieter again about this book.