---
product_id: 8108839
title: "A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888-1889"
price: "11.59 OMR"
currency: OMR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 10
url: https://www.desertcart.com.om/products/8108839-a-nervous-splendor-vienna-1888-1889
store_origin: OM
region: Oman
---

# A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888-1889

**Price:** 11.59 OMR
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## Description

desertcart.com: A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888-1889: 9780140056679: Morton, Frederic: Books

Review: yet reads like a novel - This book pulls together all the threads, cultural, political, social, and more, and ties them all together in a neat bow, yet reads like a novel. It furnishes us with a window into every level of the new thinking of which Vienna was the hub. We get to see the origin and development of what eventually became our own reality. Every art form, painting, music, architecture, literature, etc., with a dose of psychology added for good measure, gets a deeper meaning for us. We see the beginning of the attitude that was to culminate in the atrocities against Jews during WWII; the attitude that brought on the whole femme fatale movement that reached as far as movies like the Blue Angel; and a direction in architecture that is still visible not only Vienna, but Prague, Budapest, and New York, just to mention a few. And, of course, the tragic as well as tittilating Mayerling drama does not make detract from the readability of this very well researched and documented piece of literature on the fin-de-siecle.
Review: A good survey book for the waning years of the Austria-Hungarian Empire through the eyes of its capital. - This book does a pretty good job of throwing you back into the waning years of the Hapsburg dynasty and the capital of the Empire. The approach of taking a snapshot of one year (oh but what a year!) and discussing the lives of some of the Empire's most famous people at that time, some just beginning their careers, others toward the end, is an interesting approach that he could have exploited better, as some of the "characters" felt less fleshed out. Overall an interesting book, informative, engaging. I read it in preparation of seeing Vienna soon and I believe it will give me a good background and insight into what I will be seeing.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #220,891 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #171 in Royalty Biographies #1,528 in Military Leader Biographies #1,560 in United States Biographies |
| Customer Reviews | 4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars (427) |
| Dimensions  | 7.76 x 5.1 x 0.68 inches |
| Grade level  | 12 and up |
| ISBN-10  | 014005667X |
| ISBN-13  | 978-0140056679 |
| Item Weight  | 8.8 ounces |
| Language  | English |
| Print length  | 352 pages |
| Publication date  | October 30, 1980 |
| Publisher  | Penguin Books |
| Reading age  | 18 years and up |

## Images

![A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888-1889 - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91Wr3LoHnpL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ yet reads like a novel
*by Y***O on December 1, 2015*

This book pulls together all the threads, cultural, political, social, and more, and ties them all together in a neat bow, yet reads like a novel. It furnishes us with a window into every level of the new thinking of which Vienna was the hub. We get to see the origin and development of what eventually became our own reality. Every art form, painting, music, architecture, literature, etc., with a dose of psychology added for good measure, gets a deeper meaning for us. We see the beginning of the attitude that was to culminate in the atrocities against Jews during WWII; the attitude that brought on the whole femme fatale movement that reached as far as movies like the Blue Angel; and a direction in architecture that is still visible not only Vienna, but Prague, Budapest, and New York, just to mention a few. And, of course, the tragic as well as tittilating Mayerling drama does not make detract from the readability of this very well researched and documented piece of literature on the fin-de-siecle.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ A good survey book for the waning years of the Austria-Hungarian Empire through the eyes of its capital.
*by K***R on July 21, 2017*

This book does a pretty good job of throwing you back into the waning years of the Hapsburg dynasty and the capital of the Empire. The approach of taking a snapshot of one year (oh but what a year!) and discussing the lives of some of the Empire's most famous people at that time, some just beginning their careers, others toward the end, is an interesting approach that he could have exploited better, as some of the "characters" felt less fleshed out. Overall an interesting book, informative, engaging. I read it in preparation of seeing Vienna soon and I believe it will give me a good background and insight into what I will be seeing.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Chained Prince Charming
*by H***R on March 22, 2011*

In 1888, author Morton's grandfather Mandelbaum founded the family company in Vienna (which ran until the deluge of barbarians swept over Austria in the 1930s). A few months later, January 1889, Crown Prince Rudolf committed suicide. The book is about a few months in 88/89; the author's family plays no part in it, other than as an anchor of personal interest. Vienna was the centre of the Habsburg Empire. It was a cultural capital of the world, and at the same time a hotbed of backwardness and anti-modernity. The book is an entertaining walk through the time. It gives us a short summary of the Habsburg history and a short biography of the unfortunate Crown Prince, Sisi's son. We also meet a wealth of cultural players, some of whom have become icons: Klimt, Hugo Wolf, Schoenberg, Bruckner, Schnitzler, Herzl, Mahler, Freud, Brahms, Johann Strauss are put into the frame of the time and in the stage of their careers at the time. The ruling class is the aristocracy, while the bourgeoisie never managed to acquire the status that it did in other metropolises. There is a nascent movement of fervent Anti-Semitism, associated with a man called Schönerer, clearly a precursor to the movement later led by Hitler, who is about to be born at this time, elsewhere in Austria, and whose manifesto Mein Kampf will show clear traces of influence. Other political trends of the time: the growing nationalisms of the empire's components, i.e. the Czechs, the Croats, the Slovenes etc etc. This added fire to the latent conflict between the liberal Crown Prince and the young German Kaiser, who despised his Austrian peers as sissies, while he courted Russia and prepared to axe experienced Bismarck as his chief aide... (It may not be widely known that a country called Austria with the current boundaries never existed until after WW1. What was called Austria in the Austrian and Hungarian Double Monarchy was not a country but the ruling dynasty, the Habsburgs, the House of Austria. As a territory, Austria meant the whole of Kakania minus Hungary. Austria also existed as Upper or Lower Austria, provinces which did not add up to the total of what became the Republic of Austria. What is now Austria was known as the territory of the Germans in Austria. A latent conflict between the ruling houses of Habsburg and the Hohenzollern of Prussia included the specter that the German speakers would choose to accede to the German Empire.) Rudolf was a colorful and ambitious man. He was at the threshold of high office, yet rendered entirely powerless by emasculating controls and by a cold father. He was a closet liberal, who wrote anonymous newspaper articles. He was unhappy. His father was distant, his mother Sisi not interested, his wife Stephanie neither. His fateful encounter was Mary Vetsera, an ambitious social climber, for whom the author has nil sympathies. In the end, Rudolf will kill her and then himself. Vienna was the suicide capital of Europe at the time. This particular suicide had immeasurable consequences for European alliances. The book is beautifully illustrated, and the illustrations work well even in the pocket book edition (Penguin) that I am using. My mission in life is finding errors. Here is one by Morton: when Kaiser Wilhelm II visits Vienna in 1888, Morton has the black-red-golden flag raised. Wrong. That was the flag proposed by the failed parliamentarian revolution of 1848. It became official in Germany only with Weimar and then with the Bundesrepublik after WW2.

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*Last updated: 2026-03-04*