Vain, inbred and inept: how could the Habsburgs have survived so long?
One of the great mysteries of European history is how for the best part of 700 years a family who produced so many complete duffers as the Habsburgs managed to play such a crucial role in world affairs. There was certainly the odd exception to the general rule, and some highly effective women; but it says a lot about a family that once controlled much of the Old and the New Worlds that at the end of this lucid and entertaining history Martyn Rady can offer up Dr Otto von Habsburg, the last ‘pretender’ to the Austrian throne and MEP for the Bavarian conservative CSU party, as the ‘best emperor
