The Empire Strikes Back (I): How the Habsburgs Made their Mark on History | Interview w/James Shedel

Hollywood & History - 014

In what was intended to the be the inaugural interview episode of Hollywood and History, before the untimely outbreak of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, Armen and Michael sat down to talk with Professor James Shedel about the Austrian, or, after 1867, the Austro-Hungarian, Empire, also referred to as the Habsburg Empire, after the dynasty that founded the state.

This is the first part of an interview where Professor Shedel takes us on a tour of the history of this multiethnic state that still has many admirers today, its founders, its peoples, its rather peculiar governance structure, and how it managed to survive for so many centuries (the empire clung on until the very end of World War I). In this segment, the professor begins by telling us how Austrian pastry led him down the road to history and where the Habsburgs got their start in building an empire that would endure for more than five centuries.

James Shedel is an associate professor in the Department of History at Georgetown University, where he teaches Central European history with a specialty in the Habsburg Monarchy/Austria-Hungary. His research interests include the Austrian fin de siecle, the relationship between art and society, and the role of monarchy in the process of modernization. Currently he is finishing revisions on a manuscript of the history of Austria from the Romans to 1867.

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