In this beguiling, hilarious and compelling book, Simon Winder retraces the various powers that have tried to overtake the land that stretches from the mouth of the Rhine to the Alps and the might of the peoples who have lived there for centuries.
For centuries much of Europe and the Holy Roman Empire was in the royal hands of the very peculiar Habsburg family. From their principal lairs along the Danube they ruled most of Central Europe and Germany and interfered everywhere―indeed the history of Europe hardly makes sense without the House of Hapsburg.
A book full of curiosities: odd food, castles, mad princes, fairy tales and is about the limits of language, the meaning of culture, and the pleasure of townscape, and "a book you will return to time and again"