December 2009 The Habsburgs by Andrew Wheatcroft (1995, 293 pages + 70 pages of notes). This book caught my eye while wandering through the bookstore one afternoon. It's a very detailed book about really the core of Western European history from roughly the 15th to the 19th Century. I enjoyed the book but one of my hobbies is tracing the lineages of the European monarchs, so this book filled in several gaps in my understanding. The author mixes a lot of art and architecture history in among the kissing cousins of Austrians and Spaniards. I'm not sure I'd reccomend this book to everyone. It's a little dry and more of a book that should be read surgically (with precise purpose) or useful as a reference.