PROBLEMS: SOME ATTITUDES

Austrian and German historians have done much work on the beginnings of the central European crisis. The survey of Austrian history by Hugo Hantsch presents a conservative, pro-Habsburg view; the liberal textbook by Erich Zöllner, Geschichte Österreichs, attempts a more balanced assessment of the conflict. The interesting work by the Austrian historian Hans Stufmberger, taking a similar approach, expresses doubts whether either the Spanish or the Austrian Habsburgs were striving for absolutism. Like Sturmberger, Grete Mecenseffy sympathizes with Austrian Protestantism and the Estates' community, and there is a well-written survey of the situation by Karl Richter.

V. L. Tapié has devoted much attention to the seventeenth century in his studies of methods and problems in the history of central Europe. Habsburg problems have also been dealt with by A. Wandruszka and the Italian R. Belvederi. The articles by R. F. Schmiedt are also useful.

The monograph by J. B. Novák, Rudolf II and his Fall, has not yet been surpassed. The biography of the ‘Saturnian Emperor’ by Gertrude von Schwarzenfeld applies a more literary treatment and was apparently inspired by G. R. Hocke's work on Rudolphine Prague, the centre of European mannerist culture. But the best books now available are Rudolf II and his World by R. J. W. Evans and Bohemia and the Netherlands in the 16th Century by E. H. N. Mout.