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AN ECONOMIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
From the critically acclaimed historian Victor Sebestyen, the enthralling account of historical and cultural events that defined Budapest, a unique city on the fault line between East and West in the heart of Europe.
Victor Sebestyen has written a sweeping, colorful and immersive history of the capital of Hungary from the 5th century to the present day, a metropolis whose location has marked it at different times as a crucial city and one apart at times rich and prosperous and at other times, enduring unbearable hardship. The older side, Buda, looks over the Danube and the panorama of modern Pest, developed in the late nineteen century as the twin capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Sebestyen divides the complex history of this city into three parts: The Magyars, The Hapsburgs, and The World at War as we look at the rich cultural legacy of literature, music, architecture as well as the politics and the important role played by its Jewish population when Budapest was called Judapest. We meet the rulers: ruthless early chieftains from the Magyars to the Huns, and Mongols (and many more), medieval kings and princes, Empress Sisi of the Hapsburgs but also Theodor Herzl, the father of modern political Zionism, Alexander and Michal Korda pioneers in film, Edward Teller who invented the H bomb and a sister to the King of Poland who became a serial killer, among many others.
From 1520’s for two hundred years, Budapest would be occupied by the Ottoman Turks and Sebestyen points up how throughout its history Budapest has shifted culturally, politically and emotionally between East and West with many revolutions, bloody battles, uprisings and wars of conquest won and lost. Mediterranean Latin, Alpine German and Slavic people and Roman Catholic, North European Protestant and Greek Orthodox/ Byzantine religions all come together in Budapest.
Including an 8 page insert of photographs, this book is a glorious homage to an extraordinary city.
