The Fall of the Dynasties: The Collapse of the Old Order: 1905-1922

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

In the ages before World War I, four dynastiesthe Habsburg, Hohenzollern, Ottoman, and Romanovdominated much of civilization.The Fall of the Dynastiescovers the period from 1905 to 1922, when these four ruling houses crumbled and fell, destroying old alliances and obliterating old boundaries. World War I was precipitated by their decay and their splintered baroque rubble proved to be a treacherous base for the new nations that emerged from the war. "All convulsions of the last half-century," Taylor writes, "stem back to Sarajevo: the two World Wars, the Bolshevik revolution, the rise and fall of Hitler, and the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East. Millions upon millions of deaths can be traced to one or another of these upheavals; all of us who survive have been scarred at least emotionally by them."

In this classic volume, Taylor traces the origins of the dynasties whose collapse brought the old order crashing down and the events leading to their astonishingly swift downfall.

Reviews

Popular history of the finest sort . . . an excellent book worthy to rank with Barbara Tuchmans The Guns of August and Alan Mooreheads Gallipoli. The New York Times

"What a tale . . . The events may be sprawling but the assessment is succinct; a tour de force of scholarship and sophistication . . . one of those historical recreations putting many a novelist in the shade." Kirkus Review
Popular history of the finest sort . . . an excellent book worthy to rank with Barbara Tuchmans The Guns of August and Alan Mooreheads Gallipoli. The New York Times

"What a tale . . . The events may be sprawling but the assessment is succinct; a tour de force of scholarship and sophistication . . . one of those historical recreations putting many a novelist in the shade." Kirkus Review

Author Bio

Edmond Taylor was born on February 13, 1908, in St. Louis, Missouri. He attended Washington University in St. Louis, but abandoned school during his freshman year for journalism. He became head of the Chicago Tribunes Paris bureau in 1933 and published several works of history in a long career as a writer. He died in 1998.