Chronicle of the Hungarians

Download Chronicle of the Hungarians PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Sinor Research Institute of Inner Asian Studies
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 246 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Chronicle of the Hungarians by : Janos Thuroczy

Download or read book Chronicle of the Hungarians written by Janos Thuroczy and published by Sinor Research Institute of Inner Asian Studies. This book was released on 1991 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is a translation into English of one of three variant texts treating early Hungarian history. As the third chronicle, following the Pict Chronicle (1358-1370) and the Buda Chronicle (1473), it was written by Johannes de Thurocz (Thuroczy Janos) who lived from c. 1435 to 1490. An educated nobleman, Thuroczy was the first layman known to have written a book in the Kingdom of Hungary. The second and third variants are based upon its predecessor.

The Illuminated Chronicle

Download The Illuminated Chronicle PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Central European University Press
ISBN 13 : 9633862655
Total Pages : 480 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (338 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Illuminated Chronicle by : János M. Bak

Download or read book The Illuminated Chronicle written by János M. Bak and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-01 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Illuminated Chronicle was composed in 1358 in the international artistic style at the royal court of Louis I of Hungary. Its text, presented here in a new edition and translation, is the most complete record of Hungary's medieval historical tradition, going back to the eleventh century and including the mythical past of its people. The pictures in this manuscript—formerly known as the Vienna Chronicle—are not merely occasional illustrations added to some exemplars, but text and image are closely connected and mutually related to each other, to qualify it as a proper “illuminated chronicle”. The artistic value of the miniatures is quite high, and the characters are drawn with detail and with a knowledge of anatomy. Forty-two of the miniatures are included in the present volume. A full color facsimile will be accessible online. The 147 pictures are an invaluable source of information on late medieval cultural history, costume, and court life. In a historiographical context, The Illuminated Chronicle is an attempt at the popularization of the national history and a systematic appeal to circles beyond the old monastic-clerical audience. The Illuminated Chronicle (Chronica de gestis Hungarorum e codice picto saec. xiv.) is the ninth volume in the Central European Medieval Texts, a Latin–English bilingual series.

Gesta Hungarorum

Download Gesta Hungarorum PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Central European University Press
ISBN 13 : 9633865697
Total Pages : 343 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (338 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Gesta Hungarorum by : Simon Kézai

Download or read book Gesta Hungarorum written by Simon Kézai and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 1999-01-01 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Simon of Kéza was a court cleric of the Hungarian King, Ladislas IV (1272-1290). He travelled extensively in Italy, France and Germany and culled the epic and poetic material from a broad range of readings.Written between 1282-1285, the Gesta Hungarorum is an ingenious and imaginative historical fiction of prehistory, medieval history and contemporary social history. The author divides Hungarian history into two periods: Hunnish-Hungarian prehistory and Hungarian history, giving a division which persisted in Hungary up to the beginnings of modern historiography. Simon of Kéza provides a vivid retelling of the well known Attila stories, using such lively prose as - ".the battle lasted for 15 days on end, Csaba's army received such a crushing defeat that very few of the Huns or the sons of Attila survived, the river Danube from Sicambria as far as the city of Potentia was swollen with blood and for several days neither men nor animals could drink the water." The book is also significant because of the author's legal-theoretical framework of corporate self government and constitutional law, inspired by French and Italian sources and practice, which made this chronicle become an integral part of Hungarian historiography.

Studies on the Illuminated Chronicle

Download Studies on the Illuminated Chronicle PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Central European University Press
ISBN 13 : 9633862620
Total Pages : 220 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (338 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Studies on the Illuminated Chronicle by : János M. Bak

Download or read book Studies on the Illuminated Chronicle written by János M. Bak and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-01 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present volume of studies is the first Subsidium of the Central European Medieval Text series, accompanying CEMT vol. 9 on the Illuminated Chronicle (formerly called the Vienna Chronicle), written in the fourteenth century, which represents the international artistic style at the royal court of Louis I of Hungary. The volume of the text and its annotations did not allow including the detailed scholarly introduction into the same volume as is the custom with the other CEMT items. The essays in the book analyze the text and the illuminations of the Illuminated Chronicle in literaryhistorical, art historical and heraldic context. The relevant literature that goes back to more than 200 years is also summarized. Additional studies address issues connected with the narrative. Since the chronicle starts with the history of the Huns, imaginary ancestors of the Hungarians, the Attila tradition in Hungarian history writing is discussed. Extensive coverage is offered on the dynastic struggles of the eleventh century, placing them into the context of amicitia and deditio. The image of King St. Ladislas I as the "ideal king" is reviewed, a topic that received conspicuously detailed coverage in the chronicle. Finally, the fate of the fourteenthcentury chronicle texts during the subsequent centuries is examined, their appearance in legal texts, and their reception abroad.

Anonymus and Master Roger

Download Anonymus and Master Roger PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Central European University Press
ISBN 13 : 9639776955
Total Pages : 325 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (397 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Anonymus and Master Roger by : Martyn C. Rady

Download or read book Anonymus and Master Roger written by Martyn C. Rady and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume contains two very different narratives: a work of literary imagination on early Hungarian history, and an eye-witness account of the Mongol invasion of 1241/42. An anonymous notary of King Bela of Hungary (probably Bela III, d. 1196), also Known as P dictus magister, wrote a Latin Gesta Hungarorum, (ca 1200/10), and enigmatic and much disputed work on the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in the late ninth century, including a mythical origo gentis, and a history of the Magyars prior to the foundation of the kingdom in 1000 A.D. Additionally, he wove into it stories of heroic ancestors of the great men of his time. Anonymus (as he is commonly referred to) tried to (re)contruct the events and protagonists---including ethnic groups---of several centuries before from the names of places, rivers, and mountains of his time, assuming that these retained the memory of times past. Based on these, he presented a narrative in the style of the popular romances of the siege of Troy and the exploits of Alexander the Great, also utilizing some oral traditions and earlier chronicles. One of his major "inventions" was the inclusion of Attila the Hun into the Hungarian royal genealogy, a feature later developed into the myth of Hun-Hungarian continuity (by Simon of Keza and other chroniclers). Already translated into most Central-European languages, it is here for the first time presented in an updated Latin text with an annotated English translation. The Italian Master Roger (born around the time the retired notary was writing his Gesta) was canon of the cathedral of Varad/Oradea when the Mongols attacked Hungary. He recorded in great detail and vivid prose his experiences, including his hiding from and falling into the hands of the "Tatars". This he prefaced by an astute observation of political conflicts in mid-thirteenth-century Hungary. His description of the events, together with those of Archdeacon Thomas of Split (CEMT 4), is the basic evidence for the horrible devastation of the country by Batu Khan's armies. The present translation is based on the editio princeps of 1488, as no manuscript has survived.

Hungary and the Hungarians

Download Hungary and the Hungarians PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Viella Libreria Editrice
ISBN 13 : 8833134326
Total Pages : 237 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (331 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Hungary and the Hungarians by : Enikő Csukovits

Download or read book Hungary and the Hungarians written by Enikő Csukovits and published by Viella Libreria Editrice. This book was released on 2020-09-14T17:35:00+02:00 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Middle Ages the majority of people in Western Europe never met any Hungarians. They didn’t even hear about them, as news about Hungary only reached Western Europe in times of extraordinary historical events– such as the adoption of Christianity at the turn of the 11th century, or the devastating Tatar invasion in 1241-1242. Obtaining information about the Hungarians from books was also difficult, as medieval Europe, even as late as in the 15th-16th centuries, lacked libraries that would have offered greater numbers of works on Hungary or on Hungarian topics. On top of it all, works that contained the most detailed and accurate information remained unknown, in their own period; posterity only found them in rare manuscript copies discovered much later. Yet once collected, we find that these sources, originating from distant parts of the continent and written for different purposes, contain information about Hungary and the Hungarians that most often reaffirm one another. This work examines these sources and sets out to answer four major questions: What did people in medieval Western Europe know, think, and believe about the Hungarians and Hungary? To what degree was this knowledge constant or fluid over the centuries that made up the medieval era, and were changes in knowledge followed by any changes in appreciation? Where was the country located in the hierarchy of European countries on the basis of the knowledge, suppositions, and beliefs relating to it? What were the most important elements in this image of the Hungarians and of Hungary, and which of them became the most enduring stereotypes?

Memoir of Hungary

Download Memoir of Hungary PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Central European University Press
ISBN 13 : 9789639241107
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (411 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Memoir of Hungary by : S ndor M rai

Download or read book Memoir of Hungary written by S ndor M rai and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The novel Embers is selling in tens of thousand in a number of countries. This memoir of its author depicts Hungary between 1944 and 1948.

Broken Wings

Download Broken Wings PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253023394
Total Pages : 349 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (53 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Broken Wings by : Stephen L. Renner

Download or read book Broken Wings written by Stephen L. Renner and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-14 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This “outstanding piece of research” on Hungary’s secret air force program “fills a critical gap in our understanding” of pre-WWII military advancement (John H. Morrow Jr., author of The Great War). In the aftermath of World War I, Hungary was officially banned from maintaining a military air service. Despite this mandate, however, the embattled nation was determined to rearm itself. Drawing upon a wealth of previously untranslated documents, this fascinating history reveals the story of how Hungary secretly built an entire air force during the interwar years. In the early 1920s, Hungarian officials managed to evade and obstruct Allied inspectors at every turn. Unable to pursue domestic manufacturing, the clandestine rearmament program secretly bought planes from Italy and Germany. Great efforts were made to stockpile equipment from the Great War, and the Hungarian government promoted the development of commercial aviation—partly as a front for military flight operations. During the late 1930s, the Hungarian air force went from a secret branch of the army to an independent modernizing force in its own right. But this success came at a heavy cost: increasing German support brought a growing Nazi influence over the country. Hungary entered the Second World War on the side of the Axis in 1941, with its air force soon becoming little more than a Luftwaffe auxiliary force. Besieged by Allied bombings, the Hungarian air force ended the Second World War much as they had the First—salvaging aircraft parts from downed invaders and fighting until they no longer had airfields from which to operate.

The Visoko Chronicle

Download The Visoko Chronicle PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Central European University Press
ISBN 13 : 9633864348
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (338 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Visoko Chronicle by : Ivan Tavčar

Download or read book The Visoko Chronicle written by Ivan Tavčar and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-16 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This historical novel—Visoška kronika in the Slovene original—is about two generations of the owners of the Visoko estate in the Duchy of Carniola, a predominantly Slovene province of the Habsburg Empire, in the seventeenth century. The events of the estate and the fate of its owners are affected by witchcraft persecutions, the mistreatment of Protestants, and the Thirty Years’ War. These themes are key to the construction of a Slovene national identity, which was going through a decisive phase as Tavčar was writing. By the time the novel was released in 1919, his nation had left the Habsburg Crown for the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. The work is both romantic and realistic. The deeply romantic motive of crime, repentance, and punishment intertwines the lives of father and son. The very acquisition of the estate is connected to a murder, which casts a long shadow over the next generation. Tavčar insists on the principle of man’s full responsibility for his acts, which can be repaired with action and determination. The author’s bleak realistic description of the farm life at Visoko reflects his polemical view of the Slovene farmer of his time.

The Chronicle of the Czechs

Download The Chronicle of the Czechs PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : CUA Press
ISBN 13 : 0813215706
Total Pages : 294 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (132 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Chronicle of the Czechs by : Cosmas (of Prague)

Download or read book The Chronicle of the Czechs written by Cosmas (of Prague) and published by CUA Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the earliest people to arrive in Bohemia, the first rulers and the origins of the Premyslid dynasty, the founding of Prague, and the early phases of Christianization. This title covers the period from 1037 to 1092, the age of Duke Bretislav I and his five contentious sons. It provides the oldest history of a Slavic people

A Chronicle of the Last Pagans

Download A Chronicle of the Last Pagans PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 206 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis A Chronicle of the Last Pagans by : Pierre Chuvin

Download or read book A Chronicle of the Last Pagans written by Pierre Chuvin and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Chronicle of the Last Pagans is a history of the triumph of Christianity in the Roman Empire as told from the perspective of the defeated: the adherents of the mysteries, cults, and philosophies that dominated Greco-Roman culture. With a sovereign command of the diverse evidence, Pierre Chuvin portrays the complex spiritual, intellectual, and political lives of professing pagans after Christianity became the state religion. While recreating the unfolding drama of their fate--their gradual loss of power, exclusion from political, military, and civic positions, their assimilation, and finally their persecution--he records a remarkable persistence of pagan religiosity and illustrates the fruitful interaction between Christianity and paganism. The author points to the implications of this late paganism for subsequent developments in the Byzantine Empire and the West. Chuvin's compelling account of an often forgotten world of pagan culture rescues an important aspect of our spiritual heritage and provides new understanding of Late Antiquity.

At the Gate of Christendom

Download At the Gate of Christendom PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 0521651859
Total Pages : 363 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (216 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis At the Gate of Christendom by : Nora Berend

Download or read book At the Gate of Christendom written by Nora Berend and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-05-17 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern life in increasingly heterogeneous societies has directed attention to patterns of interaction, often using a framework of persecution and tolerance. This study of the economic, social, legal and religious position of three minorities (Jews, Muslims and pagan Turkic nomads) argues that different degrees of exclusion and integration characterized medieval non-Christian status in the medieval Christian kingdom of Hungary between 1000 and 1300. A complex explanation of non-Christian status emerges from the analysis of their economic, social, legal and religious positions and roles. Existence on the frontier with the nomadic world led to the formulation of a frontier ideology, and to anxiety about Hungary's detachment from Christendom, which affected policies towards non-Christians. The study also succeeds in integrating central European history with the study of the medieval world, while challenging such current concepts in medieval studies as frontier societies, persecution and tolerance, ethnicity and 'the other'.

I Kiss Your Hands Many Times

Download I Kiss Your Hands Many Times PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0679645225
Total Pages : 402 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (796 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis I Kiss Your Hands Many Times by : Marianne Szegedy-Maszak

Download or read book I Kiss Your Hands Many Times written by Marianne Szegedy-Maszak and published by Random House. This book was released on 2013-08-27 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A magnificent wartime love story about the forces that brought the author’s parents together and those that nearly drove them apart Marianne Szegedy-Maszák’s parents, Hanna and Aladár, met and fell in love in Budapest in 1940. He was a rising star in the foreign ministry—a vocal anti-Fascist who was in talks with the Allies when he was arrested and sent to Dachau. She was the granddaughter of Manfred Weiss, the industrialist patriarch of an aristocratic Jewish family that owned factories, were patrons of intellectuals and artists, and entertained dignitaries at their baronial estates. Though many in the family had converted to Catholicism decades earlier, when the Germans invaded Hungary in March 1944, they were forced into hiding. In a secret and controversial deal brokered with Heinrich Himmler, the family turned over their vast holdings in exchange for their safe passage to Portugal. Aladár survived Dachau, a fragile and anxious version of himself. After nearly two years without contact, he located Hanna and wrote her a letter that warned that he was not the man she’d last seen, but he was still in love with her. After months of waiting for visas and transit, she finally arrived in a devastated Budapest in December 1945, where at last they were wed. Framed by a cache of letters written between 1940 and 1947, Szegedy-Maszák’s family memoir tells the story, at once intimate and epic, of the complicated relationship Hungary had with its Jewish population—the moments of glorious humanism that stood apart from its history of anti-Semitism—and with the rest of the world. She resurrects in riveting detail a lost world of splendor and carefully limns the moral struggles that history exacted—from a country and its individuals. Praise for I Kiss Your Hands Many Times “I Kiss Your Hand Many Times is the sweeping story of Marianne Szegedy-Maszák’s family in pre– and post–World War II Europe, capturing the many ways the struggles of that period shaped her family for years to come. But most of all it is a beautiful love story, charting her parents’ devotion in one of history’s darkest hours.”—Arianna Huffington, president and editor-in-chief, the Huffington Post Media Group “In this panoramic and gripping narrative of a vanished world of great wealth and power, Marianne Szegedy-Maszák restores an important missing chapter of European, Hungarian, and Holocaust history.”—Kati Marton, author of Paris: A Love Story and Enemies of the People: My Family’s Journey to America “How many times can a heart be broken? Hungarians know, Marianne Szegedy-Maszák’s family more than most. History has broken theirs again and again. This is the story of that violence, told by the daughter of an extraordinary man and extraordinary woman who refused to surrender to it. Every perfectly chosen word is as it happened. So brace yourself. Truth can break hearts, too.”—Robert Sam Anson, author of War News: A Young Reporter in Indochina “This family memoir is everything you could wish for in the genre: the story of a fascinating family that illuminates the historical time it lived through. . . . Informative and fascinating in every way, [I Kiss Your Hands Many Times] is a great introduction to World War II Hungary and a moving tale of personal relationships in a time of great duress.”—Booklist (starred review)

The Politics of Genocide

Download The Politics of Genocide PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Wayne State University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780814326916
Total Pages : 332 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (269 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Politics of Genocide by : Randolph L. Braham

Download or read book The Politics of Genocide written by Randolph L. Braham and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary, Condensed Edition is an abbreviated version of the classic work first published in 1981 and revised and expanded in 1994. It includes a new historical overview, and retains and sharpens its focus on the persecution of the Jews. Through a meticulous use of Hungarian and many other sources, the book explains in a rational and empirical context the historical, political, communal, and socioeconomic factors that contributed to the unfolding of this tragedy at a time when the leaders of the world, including the national and Jewish leaders of Hungary, were already familiar with the secrets of Auschwitz. The Politics of Genocide is the most eloquent and comprehensive study ever produced of the Holocaust in Hungary. In this condensed edition, Randolph L. Braham includes the most important revisions of the 1994 second edition as well as new material published since then. Scholars of Holocaust, Slavic, and East-Central European studies will find this volume indispensable.

The Crisis of the 14th Century

Download The Crisis of the 14th Century PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 3110657961
Total Pages : 420 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (16 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Crisis of the 14th Century by : Martin Bauch

Download or read book The Crisis of the 14th Century written by Martin Bauch and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-12-16 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pre-modern critical interactions of nature and society can best be studied during the so-called "Crisis of the 14th Century". While historiography has long ignored the environmental framing of historcial processes and scientists have over-emphasized nature's impact on the course of human history, this volume tries to describe the at times complex modes of the late-medieval relationship of man and nature. The idea of 'teleconnection', borrowed from the geosciences, describes the influence of atmospheric circulation patterns often over long distances. It seems that there were 'teleconnections' in society, too. So this volumes aims to examine man-environment interactions mainly in the 14th century from all over Europe and beyond. It integrates contributions from different disciplines on impact, perception and reaction of environmental change and natural extreme events on late Medieval societies. For humanists from all historical disciplines it offers an approach how to integrate written and even scientific evidence on environmental change in established and new fields of historical research. For scientists it demonstrates the contributions scholars from the humanities can provide for discussion on past environmental changes.

Ritual and Symbolic Communication in Medieval Hungary under the Árpád Dynasty (1000 - 1301)

Download Ritual and Symbolic Communication in Medieval Hungary under the Árpád Dynasty (1000 - 1301) PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004326391
Total Pages : 234 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (43 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Ritual and Symbolic Communication in Medieval Hungary under the Árpád Dynasty (1000 - 1301) by : Dušan Zupka

Download or read book Ritual and Symbolic Communication in Medieval Hungary under the Árpád Dynasty (1000 - 1301) written by Dušan Zupka and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-08-29 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Rituals and Symbolic Communication in Medieval Hungary under the Árpád Dynasty (1000 - 1301) Dušan Zupka examines rituals as means of political and symbolic communication in medieval Central Europe, with a special emphasis on the rulers of the Árpád dynasty in the Kingdom of Hungary. Particular attention is paid to symbolic acts such as festive coronations, liturgical praises, welcoming of rulers (adventus regis), ritualised settlement of disputes, and symbolic rites during encounters between rulers. The power and meaning of rituals were understandable to contemporary protagonists and to their chroniclers. These rituals therefore played an essential role in medieval political culture. The book concludes with an outline of ritual communication as a coherent system.

The Book of Fathers

Download The Book of Fathers PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Other Press, LLC
ISBN 13 : 1590513398
Total Pages : 481 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (95 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Book of Fathers by : Miklos Vamos

Download or read book The Book of Fathers written by Miklos Vamos and published by Other Press, LLC. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When in 1705 Kornell Csillag's grandfather returns destitute to his native Hungary from exile, he happens across a gold fob-watch gleaming in the mud. The shipwrecked fortunes of the Csillag family suddenly take a new and marvelous turn. The golden watch brings an unexpected gift to the future generations of firstborn sons: clairvoyance. Passed down from father to son, this gift offers the ability to look into the future or back into history–for some it is considered a blessing, for others a curse. No matter the outcome, each generation records its astonishing, vivid, and revelatory visions into a battered journal that becomes known as The Book of Fathers. For three hundred years the Csillag family line meanders unbroken across Hungary's rivers and vineyards, through a land overrun by wolves and bandits, scarred by plague and massacre, and brutalized by despots. Impetuous, tenderhearted, and shrewd, the Csillags give birth to scholars and gamblers, artists and entrepreneurs. Led astray by unruly passions, they marry frigid French noblewomen and thieving alehouse whores. They change their name and their religion, and change them back. They wander from home but always return, and through it all The Book of Fathers bears witness to holocaust and wedding feast alike.