A study in adaptive statecraft, The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire offers lessons on how to navigate a messy geopolitical map, stand firm without the advantage of military predominance, and prevail against multiple rivals.
Author A. Wess Mitchell is former president of the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington. His books include The Unquiet Frontier: Rising Rivals, Vulnerable Allies, and the Crisis of American Power (Princeton). Wess Mitchell currently serves at the US Department of State in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs.
“In this very accomplished book, A. Wess Mitchell shows how the Habsburgs successfully managed and outlasted numerous great power challenges across multiple fronts and with limited resources — and how the Habsburg model can usefully inform American strategy today,” says Colin Dueck, author of “The Obama Doctrine: American Grand Strategy Today,” in comments published in the Princeton University Press website. “A worthy contribution to existing literature on the grand strategies of historic great powers,” said Dueck.
Eliot A. Cohen, another prominent author, commented: “An extremely important and well-researched book. It represents a major contribution to the study of the Habsburg Empire and statecraft more broadly.”
