Prince of Europe’s long peace
This is a giant Teutonic forest of a book, to be progressed through with determination as if by seasoned infantry; it is as far as biography can get from a Viennese waltz. But it has its rewards. It is an extensive and wellresearched chronicle of Klemens von Metternich’s monumental career — 39 years as foreign minister of the Austrian Empire, the last 27 of them also as state chancellor, and an extensive diplomatic career prior to all that. Wolfram Siemann presents and argues for a new and rather liberal interpretation of ‘the Metternich system’ instead of the normal view of Metternich’s influence as rigid and reactionary.
