No abstract

No abstract

for instance when Habsburg and his associates focused on the figure of Charles IV (not Charles V), highlighting his record as an Emperor who lived in Prague and who could serve as a symbol of reconciliation between Czechs and Germans, not least those ethnic Germans who had fled westwards in 1945. But more generally, the book provides an intellectual history that is relatively modest in scope and based on a fairly narrow corpus of mostly German sources. As a result, although some Belgian figures such as Van Rompuy, Charles Terlinden, and Leo Tindemans also feature in the story, it is hard to gauge whether many non-Germans were particularly aware of this Habsburgian dream. This is a limitation of the study, as any Habsburg's plausibility as a European leader surely stood or fell with the extent that they could attract followers beyond any one national or linguistic community.Pohl has nevertheless left us with a suggestive and valuable study that excavates a European discourse within which all kinds of especially religiously infused lost causes and counternarratives lived on. While these ideas and narratives may have become submerged during the first wave of enthusiasm for European enlargement in the 1990s, they have been grafted on to various projects for imagining an alternative Europe in recent decades. Pohl's study is therefore to be welcomed for reminding us how many multiple, often conflicting stories about Europe continue to be spun.

No abstract

No abstract