The authors of the International Style Library turn their attention to the land east of the Danube as they travel through Vienna, Budapest, Prague, and the surrounding countryside to find in the architecture, interiors, and folk arts of the region a host of thriving design traditions accessible again after a long isolation.Full-color photographs.

German unification and the political and economic transformations in central Europe signal profound political changes that pose many questions. This book offers a cautiously optimistic set of answers to these questions.

Books begin as ideas. The suggestion for this one came from my mentor and friend, Hajo Holborn of Yale University. To him I am indebted for a series of challenging and rewarding experiences in the study of history. This work started as a routine dissertation on a limited subject, developed into a rejection of several generally accepted notions about German history, and finally opened out upon some broader perspectives of the modern Western world. In pursuing my topic I have tried to remain consistent and true to a fundamental conviction: that ideas cannot be dissociated from the men and situations that give birth to them, or from the changing characteristics of later men and later situations that use or affect the earlier ideological heritage. Politics by slogan is an aspect of man's activity that has its obvious, serious defects. These imperfections become more menacing when they are enshrined as history by slogan in the service of whatever cause. To counteract this tendency I have tried to tie the ideas of mid European integration clearly to specific persons or situations at every stage of development. Without such anchorage ideas will billow into slogans or evaporate into loose generalizations.

The disintegration of the Cold War division of Europe and the reunification of Germany have given new significance to the debate about the political, economic and cultural structure at the heart of Europe. Mitteleuropa: History and Prospects examines this topic in the light of recent research and analyzes the conflicting attempts to understand and shape the region over the last century. The contributors give detailed critical and historical assessments of: the role of Germany; the social, political and economic distinctiveness of the region; and the attitude of the states outside the area. Finally, they discuss future prospects for Europe.

"His labors were often fruitless. His own master, Wilhelm I, and the Prussian bureaucrats, diplomats, and courtiers with direct access to this first of Bismarck's Wilhelmian nemeses could be at least as obstructionist in Berlin as Franz Joseph and his minions in Vienna. In fact, all too often Bismarck's lack of control over the Prussian elites was in part responsible for the resistance of the Habsburg ruling circle.".

Shows how postwar writers in Austria and Yugoslavia re-imagined Mitteleuropa as a cultural space between nostalgia and totalitarianism.