The Radetzky March

The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth is a broad historical novel that detects the decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire through the fate of the Trotta family. Starting with the heroic act of Lieutenant Trotta, which saves Emperor Franz Joseph in the Solferino battle, the novel follows its descendants because they struggle with duties, respect and rigorous expectations of an empire in the fall. His son becomes a bureaucrat, and his grandson, Karl Joseph, a reluctant officer, whose life is marked by disillusionment, personal failures and the emerging collapse of the old world system. Through the excellent prose and rich historical details, Roth depicted a sadness of an extinct aristocracy, the erosion of tradition, and the imperative of change, which makes the novel a personal and political elegant to a lost empire.