Having spent a summer in Budapest as a student, I was particularly interested in its history after my return. This book really fills in many of the details about the city that I never knew when living there. It's full of factiod information on population, language, architecture, etc. The problem with it; however, is that it doesn't effectively integrate these topics and treats them as rather separate phenomena (which of course they aren't). Still, it's the best history of Budapest that I've found and that's commendable.