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The enlightened rule of the Empress Maria Theresa

‘She hates to see anyone put to death’, said one contemporary of the monarch who abolished torture and serfdom and pioneered the practice of open weekly audiences with the public

Philip Mansel
Portrait of Maria Theresa as Queen of Bohemia and Hungary, by Jean-Etienne Liotard, 1743-45. Getty Images
EXPLORE THE ISSUE 01 March 2025
issue 01 March 2025

The role of personality and charm in running a state is one theme of Richard Bassett’s superb book, the first English biography of the Empress Maria Theresa since Edward Crankshaw’s in 1969. The different parts of the Habsburg monarchy – Austria, Tyrol, Bohemia, Hungary, Croatia and Milan – had little in common except dynasty, geography and Catholicism.

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