Thank you for such a long and thoughtful summary of the options, that's incredibly helpful. It sounds like I should start with Blanning - recent, not-no-homo, and looking afresh at things sounds solid even if inevitably no-one is perfect - and then hopefully I'll feel a bit more confident about reading on and around if I want to go further. Not with Mitford, though - I'm glad you didn't say hers is best, because she really annoys me! Frankly my European history of the period is so dreadful that this would be a huge improvement with just one book! I shall definitely read the entertaining batshit presentation, too :-)