The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke

“Not often does scholarly history soar and entrap like a fine historical novel, but here it does.” —Foreign Affairs

Wilhelm von Habsburg wore the court regalia of a Habsburg archduke, the simple suit of a Parisian exile, and every so often, a dress. After his youthful dream of a Ukrainian kingdom collapsed following the First World War, Wilhelm was, by turns, an ally of German imperialists, a notorious French lover, an angry Austrian monarchist, a calm opponent of Hitler, and finally a spy against Stalin.

In The Red Prince, acclaimed historian Timothy Snyder offers an indelible portrait of a man who embodied the many contradictions of twentieth-century Europe, a figure whose journeys spanned the continent and whose politics and ambitions united the old order of empire with the new politics of the nation-state.