ABSTRACT
The young Austrian historian Georg Rigele specializes in examining the relationship between landscape and culture. In his 1993 dissertation, he contrasted the Alpine Die Großglockner-Hochalpenstraße, or Glockner road, the Vienna Hohenstraße that crosses the scenic hills surrounding the Austrian capital. Die Großglockner-Hochalpenstraße presents a rich picture of a construction project that is interesting from both an economic and a symbolic point of view. Rigele has integrated a wide selection of sources, which allows the reader to get a comprehensive impression of the geographical, technical, economic, and human parameters of so massive an undertaking. Although the author is also interested in the relationship between the construction project and its broader political and economic environment, its influence appears to be predominately unidirectional—from the macro to the micro-level. Since it depended on public financing, the progress of the Glockner road construction was determined by contemporary Austrian politics.
