The Radetzky March: Introduction by Alan Bance

by Joseph Roth, Joachim Neugroschel (Translator), Alan Bance (Introduction)

Overview

By one of the most distinguished Austrian writers of our century, a portrait of three generations set against the panoramic background of the declining Austro-Hungarian Empire. Translated by a three-time winner of the PEN Translation Prize.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780679451006
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/01/1996
Series:	Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics Series , #197
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	5.22(w) x 8.28(h) x 0.99(d)

About the Author

Joseph Roth was an Austrian novelist, essayist, journalist, and publisher who was born in 1894 and died in 1939. An outspoken critic of Hitler and militarism, he moved to Paris in 1933. Roth’s novels, though basically conservative, reflect political awareness and skepticism. His best-known novels are Job, concerning the struggle of Eastern European Jews, and The Radetzky March, written in 1933, which is an ironic portrait of the decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and is generally considered to be his masterpiece.

Editorial Reviews

One of the most readable, poignant, and superb novels in twentieth-century German: it stands with the best of Thomas Mann, Alfred Döblin, and Robert Musil. Roth was a cultural monument of Galician Jewry: ironic, compassionate, perfectly pitched to his catastrophic era.”
—HAROLD BLOOM

“A masterpiece . . . The totality of Joseph Roth's work is no less than a tragédie humaine
Achieved in the techniques of modern fiction.”
—NADINE GORDIMER

“Epic . . . brilliantly achieved . . . the portrait of an empty age, an age of gold braid and glitter.”
—THE NEW YORK TIMES

“It is hard to praise this novel sufficiently . . . [It] is exceptional for . . . the tolerance and pity and humorous magnanimity with which the author regards his characters.”
—CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

With a new introduction by Alan Bance

From the Publisher

A nostalgic yet deeply moving portrait of a decaying civilization.

The Federalist (named a Notable Book of the year)

One of the best books I've ever read. This is one I'll be thinking about for a long time. . . . The story it tells is a universal one . . . It is a story about the effect of time on all human institutions and ways of seeing the world. It's impossible to readRadetzkywithout wondering if our own liberal democratic institutions and ways of ordering our experiences are declining as surely as the Austro-Hungarian monarchy . . .This is going to be a book that takes time to absorb. I cannot recommend it to you strongly enough.”

Rod Dreher - The American Conservative

Deeply moving . . . in terms of an evocation of a certain mindset and a certain feeling of estrangement, it's really great.

Jennifer Szalai - The Book Review podcast by the New York Times

Epic . . . brilliantly achieved.

The New York Times

One of the most readable, poignant, and superb novels in twentieth-century German: it stands with the best of Thomas Mann, Alfred Döblin, and Robert Musil.

Harold Bloom

A masterpiece . . . The totality of Joseph Roth's work is no less than a tragédie humaineachieved in the techniques of modern fiction. No other contemporary writer, not excepting Thomas Mann, has come close to achieving the wholeness . . . that Lukács cites as our impossible aim.”

Nadine Gordimer