"To compensate a little for the treachery and weakness of my memory, so extreme that it has happened to me more than once to pick up again, as recent and unknown to me, books which I had read carefully a few years before . . . I have adopted the habit for some time now of adding at the end of each book . . . the time I finished reading it and the judgment I have derived of it as a whole, so that this may represent to me at least the sense and general idea I had conceived of the author in reading it." (Montaigne, Book II, Essay 10 (publ. 1580))
The Austrians: A Thousand-Year Odyssey (Gordon Brook-Shepard, 2002)
This was very interesting; I had never read much about Austria. Presented as a buffer zone to the east (ost reich) of the French/German kingdoms of the middle ages; evolved through Hapsburg days; lack of national identity as this developed elsewhere. Many desired to link with Germany; quite a bit of support for the Anschluss (notwithstanding Sound of Music patriotism story). Only seven million people after being cut down to size after WW I. Neutrality adopted as a way to get the Soviets to leave. Then joined EU, started to deal with Nazi cooperation etc.
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