We're planning a trip to Hungary next year, and using LP's Hungary guide. While it paints the broad strokes of this central European country, and offers an impressive history section despite the guide's slender appearance, it's still missing some key points - which is why we're also using the Eyewitness guide to Budapest and the Rough Guide's Hungary offering. This trio seem to offer the best combination of history, practical advice, upper and lower-end accomodation and a good balance between what to see in Budapest, and what to check out in the rest of the country. (By the way, if you purchase LP's Hungary guide, skip LP's Budapest guide. Aside from a few pictures you won't find in the Hungary edition, you'll essentially have the exact information in the same guide. Save some cash and invest in a Rough Guide.)

As a Hungarian I was wondering if I'd get any new information from this book and being a curious person I bought it and must admit that it covers mostly everything that is worth seeing in Hungary.

The introductory section is a bit obsolete though this is the most vulnerable part to changes. Anyway I laughed my head off at the description of Hungarian post officers and "toilet aunties". These descriptions are true and prepare the would-be tourist for what can be expected. The section is informative, covering all the important points.

The chapter on Budapest is absolutely OK, the walking tours are managable and they cover the whole city. Once you've completed the 12 walking tours you know what Budapest is like. The other chapters are good, too, though the ones describing the Great Plain and Western Transdanubia could have been a bit more comprehensive.

Considering everything this guide is a good choice if you want to visit Hungary.

I used Lonely Planet's HUNGARY travel guide on a trip to Hungary in 1999 and was very pleased by it. It's introductory sections vivdly explain the history of the Magyars and their charming society. The unique food and drink of Hungary is clearly written about (one has to admire a guide that gives a whole paragraph to the wonderful Unicum).

The section on Budapest is impressively complete and made getting around that lovely city very manageable. The maps are clear (as should be expected with Lonely Planet).

Praise goes to the toughness of the book. I've always admired the durability of Lonely Planet's guides, as the double-stiched binding withstands the rough handling that travel guides receive.

I would have liked to have, however, more information on the Lake Balaton region. LP's HUNGARY guide seems to cover only the largest towns (and the most commercial) and leaves out several quaint locales.

But even with that minor fault, the Lonely Planet HUNGARY guide is the best out there.

A nice little book. Great photos, however, when compared to contemporary commentaries by person's whom actually knew the Empress this book seems a bit biased toward the "official" and "political" interpretation of Sissi's life, personality and problems. I have kept it for the lovely photos. I prefer to garner a less biased history from a myriad of other sources.

Hamann's little book on Elisabeth has some great pictures and a fairly good accounting of Sissi's life. This is a good starter book, if you're just curious about her. But if you're looking for the who shebang, I'd go with Joan Haslip's "The Lonely Empress" which is much more detailed and gives a more all-inclusive look into Elisabeth's life and the people who were a part of it.

A wonderfully illustrated book with a short but complete biography. The text is written by acclaimed historian Brigitte Hamann and is accurate though sometimes overly simplified by comparison to her 500+ pages biography about Empress Elisabeth. A very good book which shows another side of Elisabeth of Austria and a must for every admirer of Sissi.

We found that some of the walking tours in Budapest were outdated and difficult to follow. (We toured 9 other locations using other travel books, not frommers, with minimal problem) Elements could not be reached due to changing areas. Cautions regarding closings or operating hours were not accurate. Language was not a problem since one of the 4 of us could speak fluent Hungarian.

In preparing for a trip to Hungary, I examined thoroughly the choices for Budapest. The Frommer's Budapest book (3rd edition) gave the best information about finding and choosing accomodations, but the book has no pictures and aside from a nice subway cover on the inside cover, the maps are hard to find and not very easy to use. Frommer's gives excellent information about prices and shops and restaurants; it's almost a guide to buying things rather than a tour book. I didn't find it particularly thorough about travel information, customs, or those sorts of details. That is not entirely fair. They have a nice section in the front a kind of "best of" list for things in budapest. The nice thing about the book is that it recommends things to do if you have only one day, three days or a week. They also suggested some itineraries for walking tours.

The Fodor's Budapest pocket reference is drab and not full of much information. Don't get it.

My favorite guidebook series has been Lonely Planet, and the Budapest Lonely Planet is fairly helpful. Although it doesn't give as thorough a treatment on accomodations, the book gives a lot of hints and secret. I found its facts for the visitors to be the most helpful, and the maps (placed at the very back of the book) to be the easiest to use. The frommer book, on the other hand, put the maps close to the section of the book referring to it. The organization of LP makes it easiest to use in the field; they tend to have the best background, history and cultural information. It was particularly good about including rules, regulations and things like closing times. ON the other hand, there are not many photos, and they don't plan as many walking tours as the frommer book does.

The Eyewitness Travel Guide on Budapest by Tadeusz Olszanski is the most eye-catching and the least helpful. It contains lots of graphics and diagrams and maps, and not too much information. The multitude of pictures are helpful in describing architecture, geography and art. On the other hand, its information on accomodations is very limited. Don't get me wrong; it's a beautiful and interesting book; it just is not as helpful as the other three. And it is two years old. I'm not necessarily saying that this book is bad, merely that it may not help you very much on the excursion.

The Budapest: A Critical Guide by Andras Torok, 4th edition is a less complete and more personal account of things to do in Budapest. The other books were like encyclopedias, but this book was just a few personal recommendations about things to do and places to stay. Also, the writing for this book seems to be better than the other books. If you already are a little familiar with Budapest, but just want to learn about new and undiscovered places, this might be an excellent book. It certainly covers most of the bases, but it just doesn't try to list a huge number of accomodations or restaurants.

I ended up buying the Frommer's and a used copy of the Eyewitness travel guide.

WOW what a wonderful book. I was very pleased with all the great information.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much this book draws the reader in. The author has obviously done a tremendous amount of research in the era, and creates a chilling tale of murder and sexuality. A great historical fiction in the Gothic tradition.

Although this is not the last word in modern drama, the play included in this book is quite interesting. I am a theatre director interested in Grand Guignol Dramas and, even though I did not LOVE the play, it is most certainly a great excercise for actors, as well as for directors, since the play presents a very intriguing character. It is a ruthless character, yet the audience must love her dearly. It's a very fine line to work there, therefore a great challenge. It's strange, the poems and specially the play affected me in a peculiar way: I was not cray about the text, but it was intriguing and challenging. I guess the best way to know it is to stage it and see what comes out. For theatre lovers it is a very peculair reading. Join the Blood Countess crusade if you dare!

A quick read from a soldier of the Hungarian revolutionaries who overthrew the Russian backed Communist government in 1956. Tamas talks about his personal experiences in the war, but does not really tell us why he fights. He should have elaborated on his family's internal exile and the dislike of the Russians and their Hungarian stooges. If you expect to understand the Hungarian Revolution, read elsewhere. This is a good and quick read about the personal experiences of a soldier in the Hungarian Revolution. Tamas was lucky to get out of Hungary alive after the Revolution stalled.

This is the story of a 15 year old boy who finds himself in the middle of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Originally written in French, this translation tells the story and passion of a nation breaking free of many years of oppression.

It is basically a war story and I did some research after the fact to understand some of the places and leaders mentioned in the book--but basically an exciting book that is hard to put down.

This is one of the most dry books that I have read in a long time ---and do not underestimate my ability to put up with boring prose -- I can go against the best of them.

Having said that I would not want to discourage people from reading this book. It is an academic history and tries to cut some new ground throughout. Of particular note in the introduction is the shifting nature of what really constitutes Hungary since its "essnece" unlike Britain, for example, seems to change over time and be both geographical and historically dependent. From fierce Magyar horsemen, to guardians of the cross against the muslim infidel to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the present day Hungary divorced from its "traditional heartland of Transylvania," Hungary had always had a shifting disposition.

I did not the particular glossing over of the medieval period as I bought the book to learn more about this time. The author is really much better in his overview of more recent times and always keeps an cold analytical ear to the ground and informs you about the details of historical constants.

As the ultimate historical reference work on Hungary, this book will adorn my shelf, but if one is looking for a more flowing and exciting narrative, one would be better off with reading Paul Lendvai, "Hungary -- A 1000 Yrs of Victory in Defeat."

I was enormously pleased to discover this recently written Hungarian history book (published in 2002). I have searched for a comprehensive "English" Hungarian history book for over 20 years and FOUND IT AT LAST!!! While it is not *easy* reading, neither did I expect it to be. This is not fiction, it is a description of accurate, hard facts, "real life". One can not expect an author to make it "entertaining". Much of Hungarian history is filled with trials/tribulations, often caused by neighboring countries or the West who made treaties/alliances that worked against Hungarian autonomy. Hungary is situated in the center of Europe - hence the crossroads to the West, the Balkans, and Asia. The physical location of Hungary has created most of it's past political/historical problems and wars ...

Chapter I: "The Land, The People, The Migrations" is one of my favorites. Laszlo Kontler manages to create enticing, intriguing titles to each chapter, that makes one want to continue reading more. Although, it is often dry reading, one can easily stop & later take up any section. One can open any section for a good overview of important names, dates, and places in Hungarian history. Chapter II: "The Making of a Medieval Monarchy (895 - 1301)" is a great description of how Hungary's House of Arpad became a Catholic nation during feudalistic times. Kontler gives us a wonderful understanding of "The Golden Bull" and the rights/privileges and responsibilites of the nobility, landowners and peasants. He does a phenomenol job of revealing why Matthias Corvinus is a highly revered Monarch even today.

Hungary's "deviation" from the West and Western thinking is given a thorough analysis. The section on the Turkish wars and occupation is well written. Hungary's quest for expansion, even into Croatia and Serbia, & with some success almost as far as Naples, Italy is very fascinating. Chapter V is another absolutely thorough one which covers, the Enlightenment, Reforms, and the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. The quest to become a modern nation, despite Hungary's challenges, such as connection to the Austrian Empire is comprehensive and thoroughly covered. World Wars I and II are documented with precision and accuracy. The Chapter, "In Search of an Identity (1918 - 1945) is particularly well-written and an eye-opener. Chapter VII sums up the recent era, 1945 - 1989 with erudite accuracy.

A book of this magnitude and scope is difficult to write, I have great admiration for Laszlo Kontler 1)for his great breadth and depth of knowledge and 2) for his writing style which is flowing and precise. Mr Kontler does not interpret events for us, he gives us the facts and lets us examine our own feelings, thoughts or beliefs about the events as they unfold. He does not do modern day 'reporting', i.e., trying to sway the reader toward any political outcome or viewpoint. For this I give him the highest marks. This book is highly recommended for anyone of Hungarian origin or ancestry who wants to understand more about their roots or culture. Anyone else who has a keen interest in the origins of the Hungarian nation will also like this book, provided they are interested in "facts" rather than a "story". Erika Borsos (erikab93)

Reviewed by PETER UNWIN in International Relations, Volume XIII, No3, December 1996 -

Forty years ago this autumn the world was convulsed by two acts of aggression: the Franco-British invasion of Egypt and the Soviet assault upon Hungary. Both aggressions have long since been vacated, that against Egypt almost immediately, that against Hungary seven years ago, in Europe's year of miracles. But historians have perhaps not yet fully explored the significance of either event; as Mao said of the French Revolution, it is perhaps too soon to tell.
Until recently, exploration of the Hungarian Revolution and its repression presented particular problems. In Hungary itself and in the Soviet Union, the two main protagonists of the tragedy, the subject was officially closed. Anniversaries were marked only by official, and entirely partial, statements and publications. Honest historical research of the Revolution was forbidden, and even discussion of what happened so long ago was politically dangerous. Official oblivion may not have prevented Hungarians and even Russians reflecting on what happened in 1956 but it stood in the way of any informed examination of the question and ruled out publication of objective research about it. It was left to people outside the Soviet world, and to Hungarian emigrés above all, to brood over the facts and theories about October-November 1956 and to weave them into memoirs and history.
Hungary's freedom in 1989 changed all that, and since that time Hungarian scholars have worked openly on what was without doubt the most significant series of events in Hungary's twentieth-century history. A group of historians at the Institute for the History of the 1956 Revolution in Budapest have now published some of their work in English in time for the anniversary. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 is the result.
The book, a much modified and compressed version of a Hungarian original, provides a workmanlike account of the antecedents of the Revolution; of the dramatic and ultimately tragic events of late October and early November 1956; and of the retribution which followed when Soviet tanks had crushed Hungarian hopes. It skilfully explores the significance of the Revolution: at the time and over the decades since, in Hungary itself, in what was the Soviet empire, and in the wider world. For that dwindling band of readers of English who still care about what happened in Hungary in 1956, it provides a reliable and convenient guide.
But it also presents an interesting historiographical puzzle. 'This study', the publishers claim, 'is the first authentic history of the uprising which sent shock-waves through the Cold War world ... All previous accounts have been limited by incomplete or unreliable evidence. This important text takes full advantage of the wealth of newly available material following the disintegration of the Soviet Union. It includes domestic and foreign archival material, and also private papers and eyewitness reports by individuals who can at last put their experiences on record without fear.'
With some allowance for book-promotion hyperbole, all this is true. But it is fascinating to observe how little the book in fact adds to the material in English which became available within a decade of the extinction of the Revolution. Press reporting at the time, a United Nations Committee report immediately afterwards, a volume of essays written by Imre Nagy in 1955-56 and smuggled clandestinely to the West in 1957, a dozen books by Hungarian emigrés living in Western Europe and the United States, all these taken together gave us by the early 1960s almost as much information about the Hungarian Revolution as scholars working in freedom in Hungary have been able to piece together forty years later.
In 1963 I sat down to write a biography of Imre Nagy. I had lived in Hungary for the three years that immediately followed his execution and had breathed the air of that terrorized nation, logging rumours of arrests, trials and executions; but it was quite impossible for a diplomat in those years to find Hungarians who dared to talk about the Revolution. I had worked through the mendacious propaganda with which the Hungarian regime sought to put the best face on their repression, but there was nothing more objective, from Hungarian or Russian sources, to back it up. So I fell back on what I had smelt in the Budapest air, on the Nagy essays, the United Nations report, the emigrés' memoirs, and from all this I cobbled together a book. For a variety of reasons extraneous to Hungary it was not published at the time; and when my Voice in the Wilderness. Imre Nagy and the Hungarian Revolution finally appeared nearly thirty years later, in 1991, it was in a very different form. But apart from a number of post-1989 conversations with Hungarians who had been involved in the tragedy of autumn 1956, I still relied on those scrappy sources to which I had turned three decades earlier.
So I have had a very particular interest in comparing the information in Gyorgy Litvan's The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 with the facts and arguments I first discovered in those sources in the early 1960s. There are points on which he scores. He achieves a dispassion of which few of the emigrés were capable in the years immediately after the Revolution. He documents their allegations and speculations - but more often to confirm than to contradict them. He provides more precise documentation than the United Nations report could achieve on a number of incidents, and in particular on developments in Moscow and eastern European capitals at the time. He gives us accurate figures on losses in the fighting on both sides and on arrests and executions afterwards, figures which opinion in the West long afterwards still exaggerated. He is magisterially and unexcitingly right on the relationship between the Suez and Hungarian tragedies. His assessment of the true nature of the revolution and of its significance over the decades which followed breaks new ground. He and his collaborators have, in short, produced a worthy piece of work, but they leave the main outlines of our knowledge, and much of the detail, totally unaffected.
I record all this not to decry the work of historians but to suggest that we should not undervalue the impressions and facts assembled in the heat of the action by participants in great events and recorded by them, often in haste, soon afterwards. The western journalists suddenly dumped in the middle of chaos in the streets of Budapest in October 1956 mostly got things right. So did the freedom fighters who made their dangerous escapes from Hungary in November and December and sat down to record their memories soon afterwards. The young intellectuals awarded a grant and a desk in a western university while they went to work to make sense of their mysterious country for outsiders got things in pretty fair proportion. And the Committee which produced the United Nations report weighed up its witnesses and listened to their evidence and somehow made its way to conclusions which stand the test of time.
So The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 is a good book to have by one, comfortingly authoritative, dispassionate, removed from the cross-currents of the time. But it really tells us very little that we did not know in the late 1950s and the early 1960s about the Hungarian drama and tragedy of October-November 1956.
PETER UNWIN

This is the first true book about the Hungarian Revolution.

Due to the linguistic isolation of Hungarian, its cultural and literary wealth has become trapped in a Slavic and Germanic slurry surrounding its terrain. Teleky, as a Canadian/American third-generation Hungarian, seeks to fit his understanding into the familiar pattern of the ethnic revival of interest among those far removed from their original homeland. As an Irish American myself, I found his searches appealing to me also; the comparisons and contrasts among different sensibilities and the struggles to regain our grasp on difficult ancestral tongues brought his essay on learning Hungarian close to my mental home.
His chapters on stereotypes and Joe Esterhazy's film "The Music Box" I found particularly impressive for their mix of erudition and unforced satirical/incisive commentary. Dismantling the kitsch and tchotkes assembled by expats and Hollywood seems to be a notable skill for Teleky, and makes for his best work here.

For an academic, he writes surprisingly well! That is, his essays aim for the "educated general reader" instead of the professoriate. Always clear, modest, and focusing upon the subject more than himself--even when the subject is himself! Many nationalities feature such essayists seeking to connect themselves back to their roots; Teleky's collection appears to me--as an outsider to this nation's studies--to fill this necessary niche in the Hungarian section of the few English-language studies found on most library or bookstore's cultural shelf. For those of us not able to enter into the Magyar language, Teleky's crossing of the boundary between the Anglophone world and the Hungarian realm shows how valuable that encounter can be. I give this book four, not five, stars only because of personal bias; some of the essays--however clearly conveyed--simply failed to grab me. I doubt, for instance, that after reading Teleky on Peter Esterhazy's daunting post-modern novels I'll rush out to read any. Teleky's promotion of Esterhazy seems a bit half-hearted, as if many of this novelists' tricks dazzle less once his legerdemain has been revealed as imitations of other European literary magicians over the past century or so.

Not that many revelations await him, for instance, when he finally journeys to Hungary in 1993 for the first time. But his refusal to glamorize or over-interpret what he sees is refreshing. He keeps his perspective and sense of humor. And of balance. By avoiding theorizing and refusing to inflate his own stature as an observer, he offers honest essays each "assaying" the value of the little treasures and trinkets he puts under scrutiny as we watch.

I'd also recommend Monica Porter's "The Paper Bridge" for another expat's visit for a month circa 1980, and Zsuzsanna Ardo's "Culture Shock: Hungary" for two other books interpreting Hungarian mores and sensibilities for the rest of us, whatever our bloodlines.

I heartily recommend this book of essays to expatriate Hungarians and the people close to them as well as second- and third-generation Hungarians with a less firm grasp on what their Hungarian-ness might mean to them. As a Hungarian expatriate living in the U.S. and married to a second-generation Hungarian American, I find Richard Teleky's well-executed essays, which he wrote in an attempt to come to terms with his ethnic identity, very interesting and thought-provoking. Teleky whose grandparents were Hungarian, learnt this difficult language as an adult, following which he set out to visit his forebears' native country and, subsequently, to write about his experiences there, the conversations he conducted with newly acquired friends and distant relatives and reflections on how all this has come to shape his thoughts about his own identity. In my opinion, Teleky, an academic, is at his best when he is most personal. In "Toward a Course on Central European Literature in Translation," he describes, to great comic effect, his experiences teaching a literature course to an initially unknowing group of students who, one feels, by the end of the course -- and the story -- have grown both more mature and open-minded. "What Comes After" and "The Third Generation and the 'Problem' of Ethnicity," the last two essays in this collection, sum up what Teleky has learnt in the worthwhile quest for his connection to a Central European identity. I came away inspired to pose new questions and continue my own quest in a similar spirit, feeling that the five years Teleky put into working on this book enriched his life and deepened his self-understanding. Some of the other outstanding pieces focus on literature: "The Poet as Translator: Margaret Avison's 'Hungarian Snap'" and "Introducing Peter Esterhazy" both testify to Teleky's love of first-class literature and sensitive feeling for this language and the culture in which it is embedded.

This is a story about a fearless swede who risked his life going behind enemy lines to save the lives of Hungarian Jews. This is a good book for those who want to read about what happened to Jews in this time period. I didn't like the first part of the book but I enjoyed reading the end because of all the information about how Wallenberg could have lived through the seventies trapped in Soviet prisons.

A spine-chilling account of this great man's days in Budapest, followed by a rather tenuous and undocumented account of his horrors in the Gulag. Well written and gripping.

In the 19 century Austria find a lot of problems with their multi-ethnic Empire and with their neighbors, Austria was one of the major powers in the era of the revolutions and was not
out of content when it refers to his army, in this first great work from Darko Pavlovic we start with the infantry, weapons and uniforms are the major points of this book, a small map would help us understand the problems with their borders and why was important to have a well prepare and trained army ready for any campaigns, photos of the time would make us see with more precision the weapons and uniforms without forgetting the 8 Uniforms plates by the author, remember this is the first part there is also the Calvary from the same author which also is a great work.