Monocle Travel Guide to Vienna: Explore Austria's Capital - Monocle Travel Guide Series #12 | Perfect for City Trips, Cultural Tours & Travel Inspiration

A study in how to rewrite history, Monocle's Vienna includes a wide variety of essays on the city's history including some very major gaps. Marie-Sophie Schwarzer's laughable history of the city suggests Vienna attacked an "influx of people from different backgrounds" but notes the "tide turned during the Second World War." (Yup that's it on WW2, which is presented as a passing hiccup).Now though she affirms the city is a "magnet for immigrants from all corners of the world." What's missing? Just the fact that of Vienna's 200,000 Jews all but 2,000 were murdered in the Holocaust. Plus the fact that Vienna became a cosmopolitan cultural center largely thanks to those Jews (Freud to Mahler on down). You can try to write Jews out of history. But if you do you erase the driving force of Vienna's golden age, and the horror of its downfall.You can only judge the quality of a travel guide series once you've read the one about your own city. If all the other Monocle guides are as good as the one about Vienna, then this might be the best travel guide series out there!Breezy and well designed on beautiful paper (well printed in Germany) but I found the guide to be a bit one note. If you are looking for a luxurious Instagram envy inducing weekend in Vienna with top shelf (and very expensive) food, drink and shopping then you have found your guide, if you want something a little bit quirkier and in depth with a knowledge of history your out of luck, the lack of decent maps was also a bit disappointing given monocles general love of old fashioned conveyance.