The red prince - Timothy Snyder

1. Thefirst ever biographyof the extraordinarily colourful Archduke Wilhelm von Habsburg (1895-1947). Tattooed, bisexual, crossdressing, multilingual, he was a major - & symbolic - figure in 20th-century European culture & politics.

2. Born into one of the great European dynasties with every expectation of a glittering future, instead he became a playboy in Paris during the 1930s &died - a spy for Britain - under interrogationin a Soviet prison.

3. The arc of Wilhelm's life thereforedescribes the dying fall of theancien rgime- the Europe of his birth bears very little resemblance to that of his death.

4. Operating largely in inter-war Europe, Wilhelm islike a Le Carr character- a prisoner of private impulses that drove him to a doomed secret war.

5. To the history of the Second World War the book adds a detailed discussion of Hitler's confrontation with a particular object of his loathing - the Habsburg family.

6. A major subject of the book is Soviet communism and it's effect on the individual; cf Vassily Grossman'sLife & Fate&A Writer at War.

7. This is a book of exceptionalbrilliance and originality- it cites documents from 20 archives & in 12 languages; each chapter title is a different colour.