The Radetzky March

Description

Strauss' Radetzky March, signature tune of one of Europe's most powerful regimes, presides over Joseph Roth's account of three generations of the Trotta family in the years preceding the Austro-Hungarian collapse in 1918. Grandfather, son and grandson are equally dependent on the empire: the first for his enoblement; the second for the civil virtues that make him a meticulous servant of an administration whose failure he can neither comprehend nor survive; the third for the family standards of conduct which he cannot attain but against which he is too enfeebled to rebel.

Author description

Joseph Roth was born in 1894 into a Jewish family living in East Galicia in the Austro-Hungarian empire. He became a successful journalist and travelled widely, eventually becoming best-known for his literary novels The Radestzky March and Job, his account of Jewish life. He died in Paris in 1939.