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Maria Theresa: Empress: The Making of the Austrian Enlightenment
A major new biography of Maria Theresa, the formidable Habsburg Empress
Maria Theresa was the single most powerful woman in eighteenth-century Europe. At the age of just twenty-three she succeeded to the Habsburg domains only to find them contested by almost every power in Europe. Over the next forty years, she became a fierce leader and opponent, as well as a devoted wife and mother to sixteen children.
In this engrossing biography, Richard Bassett traces Maria Theresa's life and complex legacy. Drawing on hitherto unpublished sources, Bassett reveals her keen sense of moderation and tolerance, innovative ideas on free trade and finance, and studied reluctance to resort to policies of territorial expansion. Yet Maria Theresa's modernization policies were not entirely progressive. Antisemitism and an enduring suspicion of Protestantism greatly affected the lives of her subjects.
This is a gripping study of one of the world's most influential leaders, revealing how Maria Theresa confounded gendered expectations and left a lasting mark on Europe.
Maria Theresa was the single most powerful woman in eighteenth-century Europe. At the age of just twenty-three she succeeded to the Habsburg domains only to find them contested by almost every power in Europe. Over the next forty years, she became a fierce leader and opponent, as well as a devoted wife and mother to sixteen children.
In this engrossing biography, Richard Bassett traces Maria Theresa's life and complex legacy. Drawing on hitherto unpublished sources, Bassett reveals her keen sense of moderation and tolerance, innovative ideas on free trade and finance, and studied reluctance to resort to policies of territorial expansion. Yet Maria Theresa's modernization policies were not entirely progressive. Antisemitism and an enduring suspicion of Protestantism greatly affected the lives of her subjects.
This is a gripping study of one of the world's most influential leaders, revealing how Maria Theresa confounded gendered expectations and left a lasting mark on Europe.
520 pages, Hardcover
Published February 25, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 21, 2025
4.3 stars
March 21, 2025
This is not a biography of Empress Maria Theresa. It's an examination of her policies and the men around her who enacted those policies. Divided into 3 sections, only the first direcrly considers the empress's life, the rest of the book looks at her impact on the world around her, from her children to her territories to the arts.
Bassett does a good job cutting through accumlated years of opinions, keeping the focus on how Maria Theresa was considered in her time and countries over how she has since been written. He sets her back into her proper context, discussing how shifting worldviews have changed opinion on her. But he is not subtle - everything is spelled out again and again; nothing is left for the reader to consider on their own. Bassett has little regard for Joseph II, always finding him wanting; while I mostly agree with him, it does get annoying rereading the same opinions over and over.
The biggest problem with the book, though, is Bassett's habit of sprinkling in words of another language into sentences without translation. Some I was able to figure out with context but most needed to be translated - and some of those translations didn't make much sense. It would be one thing if it was an obscure, hard to translate term - but most of them were not. It came off as pretentious, the author showing off his language skills over readability. He did back off after the biography section ended, providing translations in the influences sections.
Bassett does a good job cutting through accumlated years of opinions, keeping the focus on how Maria Theresa was considered in her time and countries over how she has since been written. He sets her back into her proper context, discussing how shifting worldviews have changed opinion on her. But he is not subtle - everything is spelled out again and again; nothing is left for the reader to consider on their own. Bassett has little regard for Joseph II, always finding him wanting; while I mostly agree with him, it does get annoying rereading the same opinions over and over.
The biggest problem with the book, though, is Bassett's habit of sprinkling in words of another language into sentences without translation. Some I was able to figure out with context but most needed to be translated - and some of those translations didn't make much sense. It would be one thing if it was an obscure, hard to translate term - but most of them were not. It came off as pretentious, the author showing off his language skills over readability. He did back off after the biography section ended, providing translations in the influences sections.
June 16, 2025
Comprehensive
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews