The Emperor Incognito

The first complete account of Emperor Joseph II’s undercover journey through his kingdom

Travelling incognito, and without the customary pomp and entourage, the young emperor Jospeh II travels through the Holy Roman Empire and his Hapsburg lands to see with his own eyes how his subjects live, suffer, and starve.

As well as kings, queens, and the European political and social elite, Joseph engages with and observes ordinary people and their hospitals and factories, eagerly soaking up Enlightenment ideas of progress and liberty. Visiting his sister, Marie Antoinette, in Versailles in 1777, he senses the French Revolution looming and realises that reform is inevitable if he is to build a modern state.

The Emperor Incognito tells the story of an extraordinary man, far ahead of his time and in an age of great upheaval, who spent a quarter of his twenty-five-year reign on the road. The result of his titanic efforts, despite his own admission (as inscribed on his tombstone) that he ‘failed everything he undertook’, was the foundation of a more modern Austrian monarchy, in a Europe in which progress was no longer determined solely by its rulers.

Monika Czernin is an internationally renowned author and filmmaker. Her research focuses on key figures and turning points of European History, and her book, Anna Sacher and Her Hotel, spent many weeks on the bestseller lists in Germany. Czernin was awarded the Friedrich Schiedel Literature Prize in 2023 and is a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Dominic Lieven is a Fellow of the British Academy and Honorary and Emeritus Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge University.

Jamie Bulloch is a historian and has worked as a professional translator from German.