Beyond Nation States: New Perspectives on the Habsburg Empire

Starting from a discussion of three new books, the article examines recent developments in Habsburg historiography, which have important implications for the ways historians explain nineteenth-century European history as a whole, and the Empire’s relationship to its many nationalities in particular. Wolfram Siemann’s monumental new biography of Metternich makes a crucial contribution to reassessing the historical context from which the Habsburg monarchy emerged. At the centre of this work is the statesman’s political thought and his dramatic experience of political change between the French Revolution and the aftermath of 1848. Pieter Judson’s history of the Habsburg monarchy exemplifies a substantial new body of research that has shifted attention from the antagonistic relationship between the Empire and its nationalities to the compatibility between a sense of national belonging and imperial loyalty. Both works complement the discussion of hybridity and national indifference during Emperor Franz Joseph’s long reign, which Michaela and Karl Vocelka examine in a new biography