"A celebrated art historian and scholar of Japan, G. G. Zerffi also had a secret life as a well-paid Austrian secret agent. More than a biography of Zerffi, this book offers a rare glimpse into the secret service of the nineteenth-century Habsburg monarchy - the precursor of all modern secret services in Europe and beyond - while also serving as a guide to the history of the Hungarian revolution, the war of independence of 1848-49, and the international exile of European revolutionaries.

Through the example of Zerffi's life, Tibor Frank examines how the secret police were used by the state to repress individual rights through intimidation and coercion, and by way of tracing Zerffi's rise as a scholar, also provides a survey of the possible ways and traps of nineteenth-century intelligentsia."--BOOK JACKET.