For at least 600 years, the lands of modern day Slovenia (where I'm from), belonged to the famous Habsburg dynasty. But how did this small aristocratic family from Switzerland come to form the first global empire in the world?

Was the multi-ethnic monarchy really a "prison of the peoples" or was it in fact a modernising state?And most importantly - how come it all fell apart so quickly in 1918?

In this lovely (and friendly) sparring session, prof. Pieter Judson, author of the seminal book The Habsburg Empire: A New History explains why the Habsburg Empire often gets a bad rep in history books, and why its high time we should change that.