The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been shattering to witness. Although the default response of our modern age is an ironic nihilism, some things are very real. If this war has overtones of what seemed to be a bygone age, then it reminds us that the right to live freely and without fear remains contested and violently denied to many. The ongoing history of the Ukrainian question — to borrow that particular 19th-century phrasing — is a reminder that history in general is neither corrective nor moral. It is a long look in the mirror to find that we are products of contingency. That is why it is so important to possess the collective capacity of choice and to resist its oppression.