The Radetzky March charts the history of the Trotta family through three generations spanning the rise and fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Through the Battle of Solferino, to the entombment of the last Hapsburg emperor, Roth's intelligent compassionate narrative illuminates the crumbling of a way of life.

A continuation of the saga of the von Trotta family from The Radetzky March, The Emperor's Tomb is a powerful and moving look at a decaying society, its journey through War, and its devastating aftermath, and the story of the erosion of one man's desperate faith in the virtues of a simple life.