Maria Theresa: Empress: The Making of the Austrian Enlightenment

by Richard Bassett

A major new biography of Maria Theresa, the formidable Habsburg Empress

Maria Theresa was the single most powerful woman in eighteenth-century Europe. At the age of just twenty-three she succeeded to the Habsburg domains only to find them contested by almost every power in Europe. Over the next forty years, she became a fierce leader and opponent, as well as a devoted wife and mother to sixteen children.

In this engrossing biography,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300243987
• ISBN13: 9780300243987
• Release Date: February 2025
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 520 Pages