Uncommon Decency

“I was born in 1881 in the great and mighty empire of the Habsburg Monarchy, but you would look for it in vain on the map today; it has vanished without trace”. We begin with this quote from Stefan Zweig’s memoir The World of Yesterday (1942) for two reasons. First, because it is a wonderful book that beautifully describes this powerful sense of loss—do give it a read. But more importantly, because in this episode we will challenge the idea that the Empire of the Habsburgs vanished “without trace”. In fact, its legacy remains incredibly alive in Central Europe specifically, and across Europe more generally. Some might see in the European Union (EU) an offspring of the buried liberal empire. So today we will explore what we owe to the Habsburgs and weave that parallel between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the EU. Joining us in this time capsule of an episode, we have Caroline de Gruyter, a German journalist of all things Brussels, and author of “Monde d’hier, monde de demain” which covers exactly today’s topic—go give it a read if you want to dig in further. On the other side of the line we have former Talking Politics podcast star and Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge, Helen Thompson. She recently published “Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century”, a top-rated account on the three crises rocking western democracies in the 2020s. As usual, the full conversation will be available only to our Patreon subscribers.

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