The Fall of the Dynasties: The Collapse of the Old Order, 1905-1922
by Edmond Taylor
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"Popular history of the finest sort . . . an excellent book worthy to rank with Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August and Alan Moorehead's Gallipoli." --The New York Times On June 28, 1914, in the dusty Balkan town of Sarajevo, an assassin fired two shots. In the next five minutes, as the stout middle-aged Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Habsburg, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife bled to death, a dynasty--and with it, a whole way of life--began to topple. In the ages before World show more War I, four dynasties--the Habsburg, Hohenzollern, Ottoman, and Romanov--dominated much of civilization. Outwardly different, they were at bottom somewhat alike: opulent, grandiose, suffocating in tradition, ostentatiously gilded on the surface and rotting at the core. Worse still, they were tragically out of step with the forces shaping the modern world. The Fall of the Dynasties covers the period from 1905 to 1922, when these four ruling houses crumbled and fell, destroying old alliances and obliterating old boundaries. World War I was precipitated by their decay and their splintered baroque rubble proved to be a treacherous base for the new nations that emerged from the war. "All convulsions of the last half-century," Taylor writes, "stem back to Sarajevo: the two World Wars, the Bolshevik revolution, the rise and fall of Hitler, and the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East. Millions upon millions of deaths can be traced to one or another of these upheavals; all of us who survive have been scarred at least emotionally by them." In this classic volume, Taylor traces the origins of the dynasties whose collapse brought the old order crashing down and the events leading to their astonishingly swift downfall. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home. show lessTags
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Probably the best book I've ever read about World War I (and I've read plenty) and all of the incidents leading up to it. Thorough, well-written, entertaining, and most of all, the realization that there was SO much more leading up to it than just one assassination. Every country involved did something stupid along the way to make those things coalesce into a deadly and useless war. Highly recommended.
I was a bit put-off by the author's penchant for snappy write-offs of each character. But he does convey the chaos of chance and incompetence that consistently moved Europe in the worst possible direction. Very much written with the benefit of hindsight. Now superceded by Christopher Clark's Sleepwalkers.
Excellent reading on the massive disruption that was the end of these significant governments. Regardless of how good or bad you judge them, the loss of the Ottoman, Austrian, German and Russian governments had enormous impact on the world at the time and for decades afterwards.
This book looks at four major empires / dynasties that collapsed in the early twentieth century. The Romanovs, Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgs lost their empires in World War I; the Ottomans only lasted another five years. This is not the say that Taylor argues that the war caused the collapse; merely that the war exacerbated condtions that were already present. Like the shot that killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, the war was not the cause but merely a trigger.
Taylor is an excellent historian (although he is another male author with a veritable harem of females doing the actual work), with his multi-lingual background in diplomatic European journalism compassing and explaining (1) the collapse of the dynasties which ruled Europe and (2) the outbreak of World War I.
One of the best books I've read on the causes and results of the first world war. It gives this war the importance I believe it should have in having shaped the world we live in now. A very readable book with perspectives and details I have not encountered in other books.
773. The Fall of the Dynasties: The Collapse of the Old Order 1905-1922, by Edmond Taylor (read 14 June 1964) An account of the ending of royal houses in Europe in the first part of the 20th century.
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- Canonical title
- The Fall of the Dynasties: The Collapse of the Old Order, 1905-1922
- Original publication date
- 1963
- People/Characters
- Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria
- Important places
- Austria-Hungary; Russian Empire; German Empire; Ottoman Empire
- Important events
- World War I (1914 | 1918)
- First words
- One of the last known photographs of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Habsburg, heir to the throne of his uncle, the octogenarian Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria-Hungary, shows him coming down the steps of the city hall in... (show all) Sarajevo a few minutes after eleven down the steps of the city hall in Sarajevo a few minutes after eleven on the morning of Sunday, June 28, 1914.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)The advance may seem a feeble one to counterbalance so much tragic relapse, but the same no doubt could have been said of nearly every step that has been taken in man's long, slow, faltering progress upward from the primordial slime.
- Original language
- English
Classifications
- Genres
- History, Nonfiction, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 940.28 — History & geography History of Europe History of Europe Europe: Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment, Napolean 19th century 1815-1914
- LCC
- D412.7 .T3 — History of Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania History (General) Modern history, 1453- 1789- 20th century
- BISAC
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- Members
- 412
- Popularity
- 75,420
- Reviews
- 7
- Rating
- (3.93)
- Languages
- 5 — Dutch, English, German, Italian, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 15
- ASINs
- 22
