In:
Austrian History Yearbook, Cambridge University Press (CUP), Vol. 40 ( 2009-04), p. 85-90
Abstract:
There is something in a historian that loves wreckage. I am confident that scientists will one day identify a gene on our chromosomes that predisposes us to destruction. As a young graduate student, I listened in rapt attention as Lawrence Stone mesmerized our seminar describing the one opportunity he had in wartime to “sack a house.” Most of us, however, sublimate these illicit desires, and the urge to destroy only becomes evident in our scholarship. Following Gibbon and Huizinga, we relish the study of decay and decline. Humor aside, R. J. W. Evans was well aware of this instinct as he began The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy with a simple but profound observation, “Many historians, in a dozen languages, have sought to explain why the Habsburg Monarchy declined and fell; none has ever seriously investigated the causes of its rise.”
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
0067-2378
,
1558-5255
DOI:
10.1017/S0067237809000071
Language:
English
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Publication Date:
2009
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2173785-X
detail.hit.zdb_id:
674-9
SSG:
8,1
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