ABSTRACT
Naturally, the Austrian public prefers to dwell on the glories of its great cultural past rather than confront the netherworlds of its problematical political past. John Boyer’s work makes vital contributions to the rise of the conservative politics in Cisleithanian Habsburg Austria, the emergence of Karl Lueger’s populist Viennese machine politics, and adds to Burgertumsforschung in Austria. While Carl Schorske’s work on the fin-de-siècle culture of Vienna has attracted immense interest in Austria and abroad, Boyer’s massive and erudite volumes on turn-of-the-century Viennese politics have been largely ignored outside the immediate purview of specialists in the field. Boyer also places Habsburg Austria—often marginalized to the periphery—into the mainstream of European historical scholarship. Boyer’s findings on the nature of Christian Social politics and ideology also add tremendous insights to a more sophisticated understanding of the political history and the political culture of the two Austrian Republics.
