Victor Sebestyen is a refugee from Hungary, and his Budapest is a book that conveys a longing for the life he might have led if circumstances had been different. The joys outweigh the sorrows. Whenever he visits the city, he says, the first place he goes to is Rózsadomb, a district of old cobbled streets and expensive houses, “a healthy place for a historian to loaf and think.” And what he thinks about is Hungary, its rough ride down the centuries and its survival.
