Culture and Political Crisis in Vienna

Book excerpt: In this sequel to Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, John Boyer picks up the history of the Christian Social movement after founder Karl Lueger's rise to power in Vienna in 1897 and traces its evolution from a group of disparate ward politicians, through its maturation into the largest single party in the Austrian parliament by 1907, to its major role in Imperial politics during the First World War. Boyer argues that understanding the unprecedented success that this dissident bourgeois political group had in transforming the basic tenets of political life is crucial to understanding the history of the Central European state and the ways in which it was slowly undermined by popular electoral politics. The movement's efforts to save the Austrian Empire by trying to create an economically integrated but ethnically pluralistic state are particularly enlightening today in the shadow of ethnic violence in Sarajevo, where began the end of the Austrian Empire in 1914. The most comprehensive account of any mass political movement in late-nineteenth century Central Europe, this two- volume work is crucial reading for anyone interested in Hapsburg history, German history or the history of social democracy.