The Habsburg Empire
Such a complex history — and the Habsburg kings, historians, and peoples would have it no other way. One could go back to the 11th Century and Radbot of Klettgau who built the Habsburg Castle in Switzerland. The family came to rule Austria in the 13th Century; it was a duchy within the Kingdom of Germany which was rolled into the Holy Roman Empire. You see how a thousand years of histories and millions of peoples from a dozen nationalities/ethnicities/geographies are involved. What we do remember is the end: World War One and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the merciless maelstrom of the 20th Century.
This selection scratches the surface, of course. I am drawn to the history and literature of the Empire because it had such grand concerns (half of modern Europe) and great writers (Banffy, Zweig, Musil, Freud, among many). It also had supremely romantic figures — Empress Elisabeth of Austria, Queen of Hungary, Sissi, a Bavarian girl lifted to the heights of the imperium only to see the beginning of the end before her assassination in 1898, the longest serving Empress in Austrian history. All of History’s wheels-within-wheels seemed to operate in the Empire, all levels of art and science and literature and military tradition.
And we live with the shadows, the ruins, and the consequences of the Empire to these fraught days of the 21st Century.
The Interpretation of Dreams [Strachey edition]
The Interpretation of Dreams [Strachey edition]
The standard edition of Sigmund Freud’s classic work on the psychology and significance of dreams
What are the most common dreams and why do we have them? What does a dream about death mean? What do dreams of swimming, failing, or flying symbolize?
First published in 1899, Sigmund Freud’s groundbreaking book, The Interpretation of Dreams, explores why we dream and why dreams matter in our psychological lives. Delving into theories of manifest and latent dream content, the special language of dreams, dreams as wish fulfillments, the significance of childhood experiences, and much more, Freud offers an incisive and enduringly relevant examination of dream psychology. Encompassing dozens of case histories and detailed analyses of actual dreams, this landmark work grants us unique insight into our sleeping experiences.
Renowned for translating Freud’s German writings into English, James Strachey–with the assistance of Freud’s daughter Anna–first published this edition in 1953. Incorporating all textual alterations made by Freud over a period of thirty years, it remains the most complete translation of the work in print