The Limits of Loyalty: Imperial Symbolism, Popular Allegiances, and State Patriotism in the Late Habsburg Monarchy. Edited by Laurence Cole and Daniel Unowsky. Austrian and Habsburg Studies, vol. 9. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. 2007. Pp. x + 246. Cloth $90.00. ISBN 13: 978-1-84545-202-5.

摘要

In the past twenty-five years, historians of the Habsburg Monarchy quietlyrncreated a revolution that overturned the most important certainties in theirrnfield and forced scholars to revise their fundamental presumptions aboutrnsociety and politics in Austria-Hungary. Two historians whose books contrib-rnuted to the revolution, Laurence Cole and Daniel Unowsky, have combinedrnforces to produce a collection of essays that explores the character and qualityrnof popular allegiances in the Habsburg Monarchy. The book examines the elas-rnticity and situational nature of loyalty to state and nation among the citizens ofrnAustria-Hungary, documenting the diverse ways in which dynasts and national-rnists exploited each other’s popularity to produce mutually reinforcing loyaltiesrnamong those citizens. My one complaint about this otherwise splendidrnvolume is that the book’s title implies that patriotic commitment somehowrnremained in short supply, when in fact this collection proves the opposite tornhave been the case.