It's a history of famous folks in Vienna during the lead-up to World War I. Cowardly Adolph Hitler dodges the draft and shrieks racist tirades. Future Russian Commie leaders write political articles. Freud makes up psychological theories to needle Jung. Franz "Archduke" Ferdinand is the unlikeable heir apparent to what seems like a pretty horrid ruling family of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Gavrilo Princip joins a league of Serbian occult spies and plots to kill Ferdinand. General Conrad plots war, because war is good for generals' careers. He hopes that his country will make a swift raid and be hailed as heroes after a few days; instead he (spoiler!) starts World War I which was not so great (but is outside the scope of this book).
Though many "big names" were in Vienna during this time, the different groups didn't interact with each other much. If you were hoping for some Hitler-Stalin fistfight, you're out of luck. Freud didn't psychoanalyze the archduke. But there's definitely a theme of squabbling. These "big names" didn't tend to get along with others, and dragged others into their fights.
