The Habsburg Empire: A New History

"I think Judson’s book sums up a generation of revisionist history. What many scholars have been looking for is a new narrative history that encompasses the revisionist history of the past few decades. The older historiography had said that nationalism tore the monarchy apart. Revisionist historians, on the other hand, say that nationalism had many different functions and went in many different directions. For example, it could be loyalist towards the empire. It could be mildly reformist while accepting the emperor. And small numbers of radicals could contemplate independence in a crisis situation, like World War I. Judson’s book provides a summation of recent scholarship within an overarching narrative of the monarchy. He does this by combining those two factors, which I mentioned before; namely, the imperial institutions (including the emperor) and the relationship with the peoples. Judson argues for a constant dialogue between the two, involving negotiation, adjustment, adaptation, and ultimately, acceptance and recognition. He explores that relationship in a lot more depth than older books, which really stressed the development of an antagonistic relationship between imperial structures and peoples. I think Judson really highlights the interaction, the contact and the mutual respect that existed. In my opinion, the empire’s collapse can be located within World War I and even late on in the war—say 1917/1918—when you have starvation, subordination under the German Empire, Wilson’s fourteen points and hitherto unimaginable difficulties in fighting. World War I was a totalizing event, circumstances were fundamentally different, and there had to be fundamental change. That had happened with Napoleon – and the Empire adapted. The question with World War I is, could the Austro-Hungarian Empire have stayed together? Judson’s book, while acknowledging the inefficiencies and difficulties, portrays a vibrant, flourishing, if disputative, monarchy at the outset of the war. There’s been a lot of scholarship recently due to the various anniversaries of the war. Much of it shows that, in general, the army and many of the peoples of the monarchy were loyal to the monarch, really right to the end."