The book is more than a narrative or argument it is a compendium and reference work for anyone looking to become familiar with the histories and institutions of this frustratingly complex organization. To counter these difficulties, Wilson has included a detailed chronology, a glossary, 35 color illustrations, 16 tables, 22 (!) maps, and seven genealogical charts. 1 He traces the histories of the empire back at least to the third century of the Common Era and over 942 pages of text discusses the themes “ideal,” “belonging,” “governance,” and “society.” Perhaps this thematic approach will make it difficult for non-specialists to follow it does lead to a certain amount of repetition and many internal cross-references to other parts of the book.

Wilson, who recently took up a new position at Oxford University in the United Kingdom, is the author of many works on aspects of Holy Roman Imperial history, including probably the best short introduction to the subject. Far from helping to expand and consolidate empire, for these two empires, which together lasted for over a millennium, the authors point to the ultimately fatal consequences of war: the Holy Roman Empire fell apart under the strains of the Napoleonic Wars, and the Habsburg Empire did the same amidst the chaos of the First World War. Both works point to the destructive results of warfare on the two empires’ history. They also point to a fascination with empires and their origins and ends which seems again to be popular, perhaps particularly in the United States at this point in that country’s history. (A third, similarly large-scale work on a related topic, the life and reign of the emperor Charlemagne, was released by this important US printing house later in 2016.) Based largely on English and German-language secondary sources, the two books provide important overviews of alternative political and social organizations that pre-dated and rivalled the more familiar nation-states of modern European history. Harvard University Press and its Executive Editor for History Kathleen McDermott have released two major, in-depth studies of related continental empires.

Heart of Europe by Peter H. Wilson