{"title":"Books by Richard Bassett","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780300219678","title":"For God and Kaiser – The Imperial Austrian Army, 1619–1918","description":"The definitive history of Austria’s multinational army and its immense role during three centuries of European military history Among the finest examples of deeply researched and colorfully written military history, Richard Bassett’s For God and Kaiser is a major account of the Habsburg army told for the first time in English. Bassett shows how the Imperial Austrian Army, time and again, was a decisive factor in the story of Europe, the balance of international power, and the defense of Christendom. Moreover it was the first pan-European army made up of different nationalities and faiths, counting among its soldiers not only Christians but also Muslims and Jews.      Bassett tours some of the most important campaigns and battles in modern European military history, from the seventeenth century through World War I. He details technical and social developments that coincided with the army’s story and provides fascinating portraits of the great military leaders as well as noteworthy figures of lesser renown. Departing from conventional assessments of the Habsburg army as ineffective, outdated, and repeatedly inadequate, the author argues that it was a uniquely cohesive and formidable fighting force, in many respects one of the glories of the old Europe.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56231848051061,"sku":"9780300219678","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780300219678_5e51d71f-b451-4687-8d1e-0caa1a9a388e.jpg?v=1786012132"},{"product_id":"9781912945375","title":"Playing for Time","description":"Dapper, dynamic, overarchingly ambitious, Guido Schmidt was Austria’             s youngest and most controversial Foreign Minister. Corresponding secretly with Gö              ring while betraying Axis secrets to Sir Robert Vansittart at the British Foreign Office, Schmidt ducked and weaved across a European landscape of increasing menace and treachery. Accompanying the Austrian Chancellor to Berchtesgaden in February 1938, Schmidt alone kept his nerve and negotiated an agreement with Ribbentrop which neutralised many of Hitler’             s bullying demands. When Hitler invaded Schmidt was one of the very few Austrian ministers to escape the clutches of the SS. In a curious gesture of protection, Gö              ring sent a plane to Vienna to rescue him from the wrath of the Austrian Nazis. This enigmatic move by Hitler’             s greatest of paladins came back to haunt Schmidt after the war when he was put on trial for high treason. Acquitted in 1947 for “             lack of evidence”             , Schmidt’             s reputation never recovered. Accessing invaluable family papers hitherto unseen by any historian, Richard Bassett has produced a fascinating account of an important personality who played a pivotal role in the European crisis in the run-up to the Second World.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56309370388853,"sku":"9781912945375","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781912945375_96f9544f-37f0-40ec-b039-151eaf9a9e5f.jpg?v=1786030347"},{"product_id":"9780141979991","title":"Last Days in Old Europe","description":"\u003cb\u003e'With these vivid, wistful memoirs, he joins the great chroniclers of Europe - the Prousts, Zweigs, Lampedusas, Leigh-Fermors and Bassanis - and shows how some of the things those writers loved persisted as late as 1989.' (\u003ci\u003eEconomist\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eSelected as a Book of the Year in the \u003ci\u003eTLS\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eSpectator\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 1979 Richard Bassett set out on a series of adventures and encounters in central Europe which allowed him to savour the last embers of the cosmopolitan old Hapsburg lands and gave him a ringside seat at the fall of another ancien regime, that of communist rule. From Trieste to Prague and Vienna to Warsaw, fading aristocrats, charming gangsters, fractious diplomats and glamorous informants provided him with an unexpected counterpoint to the austerities of life along the Iron Curtain, first as a professional musician and then as a foreign correspondent.\u003cbr\u003eThe book shows us familiar events and places from unusual vantage points: dilapidated mansions and boarding-houses, train carriages and cafes, where the game of espionage between east and west is often set. There are unexpected encounters with Shirley Temple, Fitzroy Maclean, Lech Walesa and the last Empress of Austria. Bassett finds himself at the funeral of King Nicola of Montenegro in Cetinje, plays bridge with the last man alive to have been decorated by the Austrian Emperor Franz-Josef and watches the KGB representative in Prague bestowing the last rites on the Soviet empire in Europe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMusic and painting, architecture and landscape, food and wine, friendship and history run through the book. The author is lucky, observant and leans romantically towards the values of an older age. He brilliantly conjures the time, the people he meets, and Mitteleuropa in one of the pivotal decades of its history.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56311575675253,"sku":"9780141979991","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780141979991_7e35b157-178e-4660-bd4e-f05716c46190.jpg?v=1786011783"},{"product_id":"9780300243987","title":"Maria Theresa: Empress – The Making of the Austrian Enlightenment","description":"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 modernisation 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.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56420355670389,"sku":"9780300243987","price":30.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780300243987_606285da-43cb-41fb-bc4b-4666e658ecab.jpg?v=1786012291"},{"product_id":"hitlers-spy-chief","title":"Hitler's Spy Chief","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eHow Hitler's spy chief sabotaged the German war effort.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWilhelm Canaris was appointed by Hitler to head the Abwehr (the German secret service) 18 months after the Nazis came to power. But Canaris turned against the Fuhrer and the Nazi regime, believing that Hitler would start a war Germany could not win. In 1938 he was involved in an attempted coup, undermined by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. In 1940 he sabotaged the German plan to invade England, and fed General Franco vital information that helped him keep Spain out of the war. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor years he played a dangerous double game, desperately trying to keep one step ahead of the Gestapo. The SS chief, Heinrich Himmler, became suspicious of the Abwehr and by 1944, when Abwehr personnel were involved in the attempted assassination of Hitler, he had the evidence to arrest Canaris himself. Canaris was executed a few weeks before the end of the war.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57466550616437,"sku":"9780304367184","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780304367184.jpg?v=1785654608"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-richard-bassett.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}