Maria Theresa: Empress: The Making of the Austrian Enlightenment
Richard Bassett
May 2025 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Kitty Hendrix
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infoThis book will become available on May 13, 2025. You will not be charged until it is released.
About this audiobook
A major new biography of Maria Theresa, the formidable Habsburg Empress
Maria Theresa was the single most powerful woman in eighteenth-century Europe. At the age of just twenty-three she succeeded to the Habsburg domains only to find them contested by almost every power in Europe. Over the next forty years, she became a fierce leader and opponent, as well as a devoted wife and mother to sixteen children.
In this engrossing biography, Richard Bassett traces Maria Theresa's life and complex legacy. Drawing on hitherto unpublished sources, Bassett reveals her keen sense of moderation and tolerance, innovative ideas on free trade and finance, and studied reluctance to resort to policies of territorial expansion. Yet Maria Theresa's modernization policies were not entirely progressive. Antisemitism and an enduring suspicion of Protestantism greatly affected the lives of her subjects.
This is a gripping study of one of the world's most influential leaders, revealing how Maria Theresa confounded gendered expectations and left a lasting mark on Europe.
Maria Theresa was the single most powerful woman in eighteenth-century Europe. At the age of just twenty-three she succeeded to the Habsburg domains only to find them contested by almost every power in Europe. Over the next forty years, she became a fierce leader and opponent, as well as a devoted wife and mother to sixteen children.
In this engrossing biography, Richard Bassett traces Maria Theresa's life and complex legacy. Drawing on hitherto unpublished sources, Bassett reveals her keen sense of moderation and tolerance, innovative ideas on free trade and finance, and studied reluctance to resort to policies of territorial expansion. Yet Maria Theresa's modernization policies were not entirely progressive. Antisemitism and an enduring suspicion of Protestantism greatly affected the lives of her subjects.
This is a gripping study of one of the world's most influential leaders, revealing how Maria Theresa confounded gendered expectations and left a lasting mark on Europe.
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