Brigitte Hamann

Austrian writer and peace activist Bertha von Suttner was the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. As founder of the Austrian and German Peace Associations and the author of a number of novels and several works on peace, von Suttner's name became synonymous worldwide with peace activism and protest against old world order. Ironically, her death eight days before the outbreak of World War I was seen by her contemporaries as a symbolic end of the possibility for world peace. In Bertha von Suttner, Brigitte Hamann has written the most comprehensive biography of the celebrated journalist - translated into English by Ann Dubsky - tracing not only von Suttner's life and work but spanning the political and social frontier of Austria on the eve of World War I. Von Suttner's novel Die Waffen Nieder! (Lay Down Your Arms!), published in 1899, was a bestseller and brought her international acclaim. Indeed, Tolstoy compared her technique of rallying readers to her cause to that of Harriet Beecher Stowe in Uncle Tom's Cabin for the emancipation of American slaves. Her lectures on peace and disarmament took her throughout Europe and the United States, where she formed close friendships with Andrew Carnegie, Alfred Nobel, Theodor Herzl, and Albert I of Monaco. As her conviction to initiate peace movements deepened, so her books became more impassioned. Her dictum, "universal sisterhood is necessary before the universal brotherhood is possible," demonstrated that her concerns extended beyond the peace movement to include women's issues and many social causes, making von Suttner's work quite relevant at the close of the twentieth century.

"Brigitte Hamann portrays Rudolf von Habsburg, Crown Prince of Austria, as a liberal intellectual who stood in opposition to his father Emperor Franz Josef and the imperial establishment. Against the prevailing currents of his time, Rudolf wanted to modernize the Habsburg Empire by abolishing the privileges of the aristocracy. He vehemently opposed nationalism and anti-Semitism and fought for liberalism and democracy and the rights of the minorities within the multinational Empire. His political goal was a United Europe of liberal states. For a long time, Crown Prince Rudolf was known mainly in connection with his suicide at Mayerling with Baroness Mary Vetsera. However, the Mayerling tragedy may be seen as the last consequence of living without any prospect of realizing his ideals"--Back cover.

This biography is a long-needed vindication: it not only shows the Crown Prince Rudolf who was a Playboy, but also the liberal intellectual who, in opposition to his father, Emperor Franz Joseph, saw the signs of the time and wanted to follow them. Rudolf's childhood was shaped almost entirely by his father's military style of education. Only his sympathetic mother, Empress Elisabeth, and his liberal-minded teachers introduced change and shaped his future ways of thinking. Carl Menger awakened in him the understanding of economic and social relationships, and Anton Josef Zhisman Gindely trained him to tolerate other religions and nationalities. Under the influence of zoologist Alfred Brehm, Rudolf became ornithologist. Szeps Moritz, chief editor of the left-liberal "Neues Wiener Tagblatt" was his confidant. Why, then, the tragic end? Rudolf died by his own hand, because his will to live was broken. His dream of a multi-ethnic state of Austria-Hungary, the idea of ​​a "United States of Europe" was thwarted by nationalistic intolerance, and this disillusionment ultimately resulted in his death.