Introduction

The idea for this research project was born out of frustration: in the last ten to fifteen years many studies have been published on Habsburg cities, as well as on urban development, society, and culture in Central, East Central, and Southeastern Europe. Collective volumes of great interest have dealt with the comparative aspects, and many monographs have been published on various individual cities. But no historian has attempted to produce a comparative study on the whole of the Habsburg Empire considered as a common space in which multiculturalism was expressed in the life of its cities.