Danubia is a tricky book to review for an academic journal. Many of the categories upon which monographs are judged in that venue, such as the relationship to historiography and method, or the use of primary sources, are not really relevant here. As the subtitle proclaims, this work is a personal history of the Habsburg dominions and is therefore more subject to the author's idiosyncrasies and passions than most studies are. The book can be read as a companion volume to Winder's earlier work, Germania (2011), another personal history. Winder admits to having engaged in a “sleight of hand” (2) in that volume by largely excluding Austria and the other Habsburg dominions from his history of German Central Europe. In this work, Winder redresses this imbalance by exploring the history of Habsburg Europe.

From the beginning, Winder is clear about what readers can expect. This is not a dynastic history or a guide to the history of Central Europe, but rather an exploration of what the author finds “personally fascinating” (11) about the region and its rulers. The format follows the same history-cum-travelogue approach Winder adopted in Germania. The chronological narrative explores Habsburg history from Rudolf of Habsburg's election as Emperor in 1273 to the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918. The story of how the rulers of a Germanic archduchy in southeastern Europe acquired a sprawling empire through marriage, war, and downright good luck is told with gusto. The usual suspects of Habsburg family history—Maximilian I, the sickly Charles V, the obsessional Rudolf II, the determined Maria Theresa, and the stolid Franz Joseph—all appear, though some rulers are described in greater detail than others. The criterion for selection reflected the author's personal interest in a specific monarch.

Winder connects chronology to a strong sense of place. A castle, village, museum, or object provides a jumping-off point for discussion of various aspects of Habsburg/Central European history. For example, a visit to Deutschweisskirch (now Viscri in Romania), one of the “Seven Fortresses” established by German settlers in Transylvania, prompts reflection on the insecurity of life in a turbulent and often violent area. Much of the book focuses on the conflict and bloodletting resulting from the invasions, slave raids, as well as religious and ethnic tensions that characterized the history of the region. Winder writes that Central Europe's relationship with the East was based “on fighting and on trade” (384), but the balance of the narrative is tipped more toward the former than the latter. Winder addresses in chapter 12 the types of cultural transfer that did not occur at gunpoint or the tip of a sword, particularly the Hungarian relationship with the Ottoman Empire and the Hungarian contribution to Orientalism, but this is a minor episode in a tale dominated by struggle and strife. Indeed, one of Winder's stated aims is to “dramatize the sheer awfulness of living in Central Europe for some much-earlier periods” (6), by which he means the medieval and much of the early modern periods. Winder thus emphasizes Habsburg struggles with the Ottomans and, later, the destructive nature of the nineteenth-century nationalisms that ultimately tore apart the Habsburg Empire. Although the narrative finishes in 1918, Winder's conclusion addresses the interwar years: he asks whether Adolf Hitler was the “quintessential product” of the “nationalist laboratory of the Empire's final decade” (511), but admits that such questions cannot be answered.

Winder's enthusiasm for classical music, art, and architecture provides a running thread throughout the book, and one of its strengths is Winder's ability to link material culture to historical narrative as he explores the relationships among politics, society, and artistic representation. Again, however, the criteria for inclusion boil down to the author's tastes in music, literature, and art. Academics will likely find it easy to pick holes in Winder's book. It is a tall order to condense centuries of Habsburg history into five hundred pages. Specialists might complain that Winder has not paid enough attention to specific aspects, or that a particular factor has been oversimplified, or that the significance of a certain historical figure has been underestimated. For example, Winder underestimates the Austrian contribution to the defeat of Napoleon. The Habsburgs might indeed have spent much time “being beaten up by Napoleon” (307), but their state nevertheless showed remarkable resilience in repeatedly placing armies in the field and in providing Karl Philipp, Prince of Schwarzenberg, as the overall field commander of the Allies in 1813. Other readers might tire of Winder's self-deprecating humor and colloquial writing style. “Loopy” is a favorite descriptor (6, 158, 231, 279, 293, 367, 433). Winder makes no claim to specialist knowledge, but instead evinces a general and infectious enthusiasm for Central European history and culture.

Given its idiosyncrasies, the book is an unlikely candidate for core reading lists. But for the general reader and for students unfamiliar with the centrality of the Habsburgs to European history and the rich literary and artistic heritage of the complex region they ruled, the work provides an accessible and amusing account replete with interesting anecdotes and asides. To return to the title, this is a personal history and, if this reviewer might be allowed a personal response, I quite enjoyed the book.