Budapest 1900: A Historical Portrait of a City and Its Culture
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List Price: $14.00 $11.20 $ 2.80 ( 20% ) Grove Press John Lukacs
Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 940EAN: 9780802132505ISBN: 0802132502Label: Grove PressManufacturer: Grove PressNumber Of Items: 1Number Of Pages: 288Publication Date: 1994-02-01Publisher: Grove PressStudio: Grove Press
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Editorial Reviews: "Lukacs's book is a lyrical, sometimes dazzling, never merely nostalgic evocation of a glorious period in the city's history. . . . {His} true sympathy lies . . . not with the famous expatriates, but with the writers and intellectuals who lived and died at home: the poets Endre Ady and Mihaly Babits; the novelists Ferenc Herczeg, Sandor Hunyady, Frigyes Karinthy, Dezso Kosztolanyi, Gyula Krudy, Kalman Mikszath, and Zsigmond Moricz; the political essayist DezsoSzabo; the playwright Erno Szep; the literary historian Antal Szerb; and others. . . . {John Lukacs} sets out to explain Hungarian literature to English-speaking readers. Though I have no idea whether or not he will succeed, few interpreters of Hungarian literature have made a more touching and eloquent attempt." -- The New York Review of Books
Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: OK (but only OK) if you are interested in Budapest around 1900Comment: In many of his books, Lukacs sets out to write a multi-disciplinary history (drawing on economics, psychology, sociology, and political theory) of a narrowly circumscribed subject during a relatively thin slice of time (e.g., "Five Days in London, May 1940" and "June 1941: Hitler and Stalin"). Here, the object of Lukacs' rather idiosyncratic approach to history is the city of Budapest around 1900, which, according to Lukacs, was the city's zenith as a cultural and commercial center of (Eastern) Europe. Unlike reading many of Lukacs' books, however, reading BUDAPEST 1900 is tough going. Lukacs does make an impressive case for the significance of Budapest and its many notable literary, artistic, and intellectual figures around the turn of the century, but he burdens that case with page after page of tedious chamber-of-commerce data: miles of railroad track, water consumption per capita, number of mailboxes, number of gymnasiums, theater seats per capita, etc., etc. Further, it is not readily apparent which pages or paragraphs to skip. To get to the wheat, one must necessarily sift through a lot of chaff.
Customer Rating: Summary: episodic and verboseComment: History doesn't have to be a boring list of facts - look at Norman Davies's Europe: A History for evidence of that. But Lukac's Budapest 1900 is an example of what can go wrong when the historian attempts to write like a novelist.
Customer Rating: Summary: The Souring of NationalismComment: This is another book that deserves to be put back into print. Throughout a long and productive career, John Lukacs has taken pride (sometimes bordering on preening) in his penchant for defining things his own way. Sometimes it works, sometimes it just a distraction. But no subject is better suited to his mix of talents than this "historical portrait" (as he puts it) of this the capital of his native country.The book is a nostalgia trip in part, but it is a good deal more. Lukacs also undertakes to to situate Budapest in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and in particular, in contrast to its great partner, Vienna -- it's remarkable even today how these two cities, so close together on the map can seem so far apart.
But perhaps the best part of the book is in his chapter on "Seeds of Trouble," when he undertakes to show how liberal nationalism went sour and headed down the road to anti-semitism and the destructive hyper-nationalism that wracked us all through so much of the 20th century. Liberal nationalism had always contained the seeds of its own undoing. Discerning politicians as disparate as Disraeli, Bismark and Napoleon III had already grasped how the liberal impulse could be harnessed to conservative ends. But through Lukacs' eyes, you can see just how quick and subtle -- and disastrous -- the shift can be. Probably the point is that Lukacs was never a good liberal to begin with. So he can look on with unblinkered eyes as the liberal vision crumbles in his hands.
For all of Lukacs' aristocratic disdain, it is possible for a reader less austere than the author to see this shift as a disaster. Perhaps a good pairing for this book would be Gordon A. Craig's "Triumph of Liberalism" about Zurich in a slightly earlier time: there you can be reminded (if you need reminding) of just how refreshing the rise of liberalism could be.
Lukacs has a final chapter called "Since Then," but it's perfunctory. There's certainly a story to be told about 20th Century Budapest, but you wouldn't come here to find it. On the other hand, as an exercise in archaeology -- of the substrate that underlies our more recent battles -- this book is hard to beat.
Customer Rating: Summary: Bravo!Comment: Reading this book took me on a trip to an age when things were golden. I was able to see places I have been and picture myself in those times. The christian-jewish relationships were a model that can be likened-to today's America. I enjoyed the section about the coffeehouse district and also the author's footnotes. I learned a lot of things I did not know about political sides and issues.Anyone thinking of buying this book will be pleased with their purchase. I have read "An Undiplomatic Diary", by an american General after WWI. I would like to read about Emperor Karl 1st, the "Peace Emperor". This combination of books bring about a rounded history. I am sure that there are other books to read, but these are pretty good places to start.
The last chapter tied everything together and was very strong.
Customer Rating: Summary: A stylist, especially in his footnotes!Comment: Lukacs attempts to capture the mental climate of Budapest 1900. This is a kind of impressionistic approach to history that uses scholarship to achieve its effects. He is definitely worth reading.
