These essays, by the leading historian of the Austro-Hungarian empire, explore the political and religious history of the Habsburg lands. They also describe key aspects of the evolution towards modern statehood and national awareness in Central Europe over more than two centuries of cultural and social transition.

A EuropeNow Editor’s Pick A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year “Pieter M. Judson’s book informs and stimulates. If his account of Habsburg achievements, especially in the 18th century, is rather starry-eyed, it is a welcome corrective to the black legend usually presented. Lucid, elegant, full of surprising and illuminating details, it can be warmly recommended to anyone with an interest in modern European history.” —Tim Blanning, Wall Street Journal “This is an engaging reappraisal of the empire whose legacy, a century after its collapse in 1918, still resonates across the nation-states that replaced it in central Europe. Judson rejects conventional depictions of the Habsburg empire as a hopelessly dysfunctional assemblage of squabbling nationalities and stresses its achievements in law, administration, science and the arts.” —Tony Barber, Financial Times “Spectacularly revisionist... Judson argues that...the empire was a force for progress and modernity... This is a bold and refreshing book... Judson does much to destroy the picture of an ossified regime and state.” —A. W. Purdue, Times Higher Education “Judson’s reflections on nations, states and institutions are of broader interest, not least in the current debate on the future of the European Union after Brexit.” —Annabelle Chapman, Prospect

This book address a number of interrelated themes over two hundred years and more in the political, religious, cultural, and social history of a broad but often neglected swathe of the European continent. It seeks - against the grain of conventional presentations - to apprehend the era from the later seventeenth to the later nineteenth century as a whole, and to demonstrate continuities, as well as casting light on key aspects of the evolution towards modern statehood and national awareness in Central Europe, and the crises of ancien-regime strucutres there in the face of new challenges at home and abroad. Each of the essays - some of which specially written for this volume, and others available for the first time in English - is intended to be free-standing and accessible on its own; but they are also designed to fit together and demonstrate an overall coherence. Much attention is devoted to the Austrian or Habsburg lands, especially the interplay of the main territories which comprised them. A central issue here is the evolution of the kingdom of Hungary, from its full acquisition by the Habsburgs at the beginning of the period to the emergence of the dual Austro-Hungarian Monarchy at the end. But the chapters also range more broadly, both territorially and chronologically. Though much of the scholarship underpinning this masterly exploration may be unfamiliar to many readers, this is a an elegantly written and stimulating collection, which reflects the exploratory and individual character of the essay as a genre.

A major re-examination of Habsburg decision-making from 1912 to July 1914, the study argues that Austria-Hungary and not Germany made the crucial decisions for war in the summer of 1914. Based on extensive new archival research, the book traces the gradual militarization of Austro-Hungarian foreign policy during the Balkan Wars. The disasters of those wars and the death of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir-apparent and a force for peace in the monarchy, convinced the Habsburg elite that only a war against Serbia would end the South Slav threat to the monarchy's existence. Williamson also describes Russia's assertive foreign policy after 1912 and stresses the unique linkages of domestic and foreign policy in almost every issue faced by Habsburg statesmen.

History of the Austrian empire and Austria-Hungary.