Michael Hochedlinger is Senior Archivist at the Austrian State Archives. He is an expert on the history of the early modern Habsburg army.

Introduction: The belated great power; Part 1 Modest Origins - the Habsburg Monarchy During the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century; Chapter 1 The domestic foundations; Chapter 2 The primacy of power politics; Chapter 3 Home defence; Chapter 4 The standing army; Part 2 Austria's 'age of heroes' 1683-1733; Chapter 5 The Turkish War 1683-1699; Chapter 6 The Nine Years War 1689-1697; Chapter 7 The War of the Spanish Succession 1701-1714; Chapter 8 Renewed expansion; Part 3 The crisis of a great power 1733-1748; Chapter 9 Diplomatic reverses and military defeats; Chapter 10 Squaring the circle or how to administer and defend a territorial giant; Chapter 11 The War of the Austrian Succession 1740-1748; Part 4 Reform - revenge - aggression; Chapter 12 The modernization of the Habsburg Monarchy in the age of Enlightened Absolutism 1740-1790; Chapter 13 Army and society; Chapter 14 The Seven Years War 1756-1763; Chapter 15 Peacetime expansion in the East 1764-1775; Chapter 16 Streamlining the Habsburg Monarchy; Chapter 17 The Russian maelstrom; Chapter 18 State crisis and recovery; Part 5 The revolutionary challenge 1789-1797; Chapter 19 From 'military promenade' to life-and-death struggle 1789-1794; Chapter 20 In search of compensations 1792-1795; Chapter 21 False Hopes 1796-1797 |Prospect;