Absolutist State Research Articles

Billigkeit: Literatur und Sozialethik in der deutschen Aufklärung. Ein Essay by Wolfram Mauser

MLR, 104.3, 2009 901 offersonly a short excerpt from a poem by one of them (p. 157). Linton does not directly confront the question of themale gender of nearly all her authors. Do more poems by women exist?Might those authors identified only by initials in the funeral pamphlets have been women, prevented by convention from publicly revealing their names? Are devotional songs to be excluded from the genre of epicedia7. (She mentions only one, p. 81.) Writing and disseminating devotional song textswas considered an acceptable activity forwomen, and they sometimes used such poems designed to be sung to a popular hymn melody in order to express theirwords of grief and consolation on the loss of a child, whether their own or that of another woman. See, for example, the songs on the deaths of children inAemilie Juliane von Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, Geistliches Weiber-Aqua Vit (1683). The issues surrounding authorial gender deserve more discussion in this context. The book isbeautifully printed and painstakingly copy-edited; I encountered only a few typographical errors, and thesewere confined to the footnotes and appendices. The volume includes an appendix of short biographies of themany lesser-known poets cited, extensive primary and secondary bibliographies, and a useful index of names, places, and subjects. University of Iowa Judith P. Aikin Billigkeit: Literatur und Sozialethik in der deutschen Aufkl?rung. Ein Essay. By Wolfram Mauser. W?rzburg: K?nigshausen & Neumann. 2007. 250 pp. 29.80. ISBN 978-3-8260-3760-3. In his latestwork,Wolfram Mauser wants to raise awareness of a neglected value of theGerman Enlightenment. He argues thatBilligkeit is thekey to a cluster of values which shaped a distinctive middle-class moral outlook between the late seven teenth and the late eighteenth centuries.Within themiddle class, Billigkeit?equity' is the closest English concept?stood formutual respect, reciprocal recognition, readiness to compromise and to see the other person's point of view. In relation to authority, Billigkeit implicitly gained political force, since itsdemands and the habits ofmutual respect ran counter to the theory and practice of the absolutist state. Mauser calls his book an essay' and thus disarms expectations of a systematic account of his chosen topic. There are sections devoted to socio-historical analysis, to studies ofword-fields and the history ofwords, and to the discussion of liter ary works. Longer sections deal with Lessing's concept of criticism and Herder's philosophy of history. A closing chapter diagnoses a crisis of Billigkeit in the latter third of the eighteenth century and its replacement by a new, more individual istic set of values. Throughout Mauser draws out the relevance of his topic for the present. Billigkeit, he believes, has suffered from neglect not only from his torians of ideas; political philosophers, politicians, and citizens themselves would 902 Reviews do well, he maintains, to recover an awareness of Billigkeit as the core value of a liberal 'Sozialethik' which even in our day could do much to restore social cohe sion. Mauser has hit upon an important subject for the study of theAufkl?rung. As his previous work Konzepte aufgekl?rter Lebensf?hrung (W?rzburg: K?nigshausen & Neumann, 2000) also demonstrates, he has seen how much there is to be gained from examining specific concepts of themoral discourse of the period, at the next conceptual level down from the larger abstractions ofTugend' and 'Vernunft'.His examples leave no doubt thatBilligkeit was indeed recognized as a key value at the time and that appeals to Billigkeit were important in regulating social interactions within theworld of lettersand in civic society. There are, none the less, a number of problems with his argument. His historical claim, thatBilligkeit rose to prominence only at the end of the seventeenth century, and was replaced by etwas kategorial Neues' around 1800 (p. 214), gains plausibility only from the selection of examples he makes; these are too few to back up his case. Mauser's insistence that Billigkeit was claimed almost exclusively by themiddle class seems similarly flawed. Throughout, he is at pains to separate the moral ('sozialethisch') concept of Billigkeit from the legal concept of equity, which had a well-established place in Roman law and in early modern legal theory. This rigid...

The Longue Durée of the French Bourgeoisie

AbstractBeginning with Engels, Marxist historiography viewed the absolute monarchy in France as mediating between the nobility and the emergent capitalist bourgeoisie. More recent Marxist accounts stress that the absolute monarchy reflected the interests of the nobility. Revisionist Marxist historians have taken this perspective to an extreme arguing that, at the height of the Bourbon monarchy in the seventeenth century, a capitalist bourgeoisie did not exist. This paper argues that, in taking such a view, these historians have ignored the ongoing dialectical opposition between the forces of rent and profit in the early-modern period. As a result, they have severed the connection between the ancien régime and the Revolution of 1789. Despite being thrown on the defensive by the advance of rent and the crystallisation of the absolutist state, a capitalist bourgeoisie that emerged in sixteenth-century France survived and persevered during the seventeenth century. It resumed the initiative in the succeeding period of the Enlightenment.

Intervenção estatal sobre o domínio econômico: fiscalização, incentivo e planejamento

At different times that history and political philosophy report and analyze the presence of political power had different degrees of interference in society and the level of economic relations. In this work, the moments run into that were present, more expressively, the ideals of the Absolutist State, the liberal state, the welfare state and the Neoliberal State to establish the influence of each state model in the formulation of the juridical regime economic of the Brazilian state, outlined by Art. 170 of the Federal Constitution. The chances of state intervention in the economic order are provided for in Art. 174 of the said law (supervision, encouragement and planning) and are only justified when they pursue the compliance with the purposes of the legal system opened in 1988.

Cultures of death and politics of corpse supply: anatomy in Vienna, 1848-1914.

Nineteenth-century Vienna is well known to medical historians as a leading center of medical research and education, offering easy access to patients and corpses to students from all over the world. The author seeks to explain how this enviable supply of cadavers was achieved, why it provoked so little opposition at a time when Britain and the United States saw widespread protests against dissection, and how it was threatened from mid-century onward. To understand permissive Viennese attitudes, we need to place them in a longue durée history of death and dissection and to pay close attention to the city's political geography as it was transformed into a major imperial capital. The tolerant stance of the Roman Catholic Church, strong links to Southern Europe, and the weak position of individuals in the absolutist state all contributed to an idiosyncratic anatomical culture. But as the fame of the Vienna medical school peaked in the later 1800s, the increased demand created by rising numbers of students combined with intensified interdisciplinary competition to produce a shortfall that professors found increasingly difficult to meet. Around 1900, new religious groups and mass political parties challenged long-standing anatomical practice by refusing to supply cadavers and making dissection into an instrument of political struggle. This study of the material preconditions for anatomy at one of Europe's most influential medical schools provides a contrast to the dominant Anglo-American histories of death and dissection.

`Aufklärung', freemasonry, the public sphere and the question of Enlightenment

That the Enlightenment was a movement reaching across at least three European countries (France, Germany and Britain) in the eighteenth century, with a similar platform in all three (social improvement on the basis of unassisted reason), is the current orthodoxy. Yet this view can only be accepted with qualifications. It is the intention of this essay to focus attention on these qualifications. A first objection lies with the fact that no platform of Enlightenment was articulated in any country in the eighteenth century apart from Germany. In the debate about Enlightenment initiated in the Berlinische Monatsschrift in 1783, Kant's insistence that Aufklärung must stay within political limits is considered characteristic not only of the German discussion, but indeed of all broadly Enlightenment thought from the beginning. In considering Koselleck's argument about the Enlightenment, which analysed this same conservatism, a second objection is apparent: the impulse to stay within the confines of the absolutist state suggests that eighteenth-century Enlightenment, politically speaking, was decidedly other than that which has subsequently been found within it.

The Historical Origins of 'Open Science': An Essay on Patronage, Reputation and Common Agency Contracting in the Scientific Revolution

This essay examines the economics of patronage in the production of knowledge and its influence upon the historical formation of key elements in the ethos and organizational structure of publicly funded `open science.' The emergence during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries of the idea and practice of `open science' was a distinctive and vital organizational aspect of the Scientific Revolution. It represented a break from the previously dominant ethos of secrecy in the pursuit of Nature's Secrets, to a new set of norms, incentives, and organizational structures that reinforced scientific researchers' commitments to rapid disclosure of new knowledge. The rise of `cooperative rivalries' in the revelation of new knowledge, is seen as a functional response to heightened asymmetric information problems posed for the Renaissance system of court-patronage of the arts and sciences; pre-existing informational asymmetries had been exacerbated by the claims of mathematicians and the increasing practical reliance upon new mathematical techniques in a variety of `contexts of application.' Reputational competition among Europe's noble patrons motivated much of their efforts to attract to their courts the most prestigious natural philosophers, was no less crucial in the workings of that system than was the concern among their would-be clients to raise their peer-based reputational status. In late Renaissance Europe, the feudal legacy of fragmented political authority had resulted in relations between noble patrons and their savant-clients that resembled the situation modern economists describe as `common agency contracting in substitutes' -- competition among incompletely informed principals for the dedicated services of multiple agents. These conditions tended to result in contract terms (especially with regard to autonomy and financial support) that left agent client members of the nascent scientific communities better positioned to retain larger information rents on their specialized knowledge. This encouraged entry into their emerging disciplines, and enabled them collectively to develop a stronger degree of professional autonomy for their programs of inquiry within the increasingly specialized and formal scientific academies (such the Académie royale des Sciences and the Royal Society) that had attracted the patronage of rival absolutist States of Western Europe during the latter part of the seventeenth century. The institutionalization of `open science' that took place within those settings is shown to have continuities with the use by scientists of the earlier humanist academies, and with the logic of regal patronage, rather than being driven by the material requirements of new observational and experimental techniques.

Expanding the Classical in Classical Sociology

If it is to become a more widely used resource at the present time, when the demand is growing for explanations of the predicament of modern western society in the wake of the events of 11 September 2001 and various similar subsequent events around the globe, classical sociology might pay more attention than it usually does to a particular set of early modern developments. These developments, it is argued here, actually created the form of the social that became large-scale modern western society. This new form of the social was and remains distinct from those older forms that were seen to flow from the natural sociality of human beings. Between the middle of the 16th century and the end of the 17th the new form of the social emerged in different parts of Europe, contingently but not entirely accidentally, as a separate domain of relatively safe and free human interaction. It was a consequence — in part intended, in part unintended — of different bids to secure civil peace in times of extreme inter-communal, inter-confessional violence. These bids included, to name just three measures: the development of new forms of public law, especially in Germany; the development of the absolutist state, especially in France; and the separation of private religious conscience from public legal conscience, especially in England. As they were all, in one way or another, steps towards stemming, stopping, and/or preventing the flow of blood caused by religious hatreds, they are here called early modern limiting measures, and the social at the centre of the article is sometimes called the limited social or limited society.

A Crucial Discussion for Democracy

from the need to overcome the limitations of the censorship imposed by the Absolutist State. The right to freedom of expression, defended in manifestoes such as Areopagite by John Milton in the XVII century, who was protesting the monopoly of censorship created by the English government, took on new importance with the proclamation of the Constitution of the United States, in the XVIII century, which established it as an unalienable right, and acquired legitimacy as a doctrine with the Essay on Liberty by Stuart Mill in XIX century England, during the bourgeoisie’s rise to power in the State. One hundred years later, in the XX century, the action of the press in the two World Wars revealed that it was time for a discussion with regard to limits on the practice of journalism. Transformed into one of the most profi table areas of capitalism, the press was far from merely supporting the public interest; instead, it frequently acted in its own interest or in defense of inadmissible interests. The creation of Special Committees for studying the possibilities of regulating the activity of the press in the United States and in England in the post-war period is only one of the indications of the uneasiness caused by mass journalism since the last century. Starting in the middle of the XX century, a group of initiatives has been identifi ed whose purpose has been to regulate the practice of journalism and which range from individual actions such as the hiring of A CRUCIAL DISCUSSION FOR DEMOCRACY

Sobre as origens e o desenvolvimento do estado moderno no ocidente

O texto discute o problema da formação do Estado moderno no Ocidente e está organizado em quatro partes. Primeiramente, aborda-se o Estado em termos teóricos e gerais e de um ponto de vista que concerne mais às Ciências Sociais do que à História. A segunda parte, de caráter essencialmente historiográfico, mostra como o Estado absolutista foi interpretado pelos historiadores. Na terceira e quarta partes, examina-se a origem do Estado moderno na Itália, particularmente em Veneza e Florença, e seu desenvolvimento na França e Inglaterra. O texto estabelece também paralelos entre os Estados mencionados.

El primer virreinato americano

This article explores the government of viceroy Christopher Columbus in the American territories. We return to the first Spanish settlement in Santo Domingo and the contradictions inherent to this expansionist proyect. The contradictions were part of the logic of the absolutist state and Columbus’ reaction against the controls imposed by the monarchs. Secondly, we look into the dificulties that the Admiral encountered to develop a mercantilist model. In this context, we examine the rationale behind the first government of the Indies and the features that defined the new West Indian society.

Balancing State, Market and Social Justice: Russian Experiences and Lessons to Learn

This article deals with the relations in the triangle state–society–business in modern Russia. It is shown against Russian historical background, that the absolutist state in this country could never be identified with the society and these relations were shaped under its strong domination. The ethics of rule-following characteristic for market economy in general did not develop in Russia. The breakdown of communist Russia and market reforms proceeding since 1992 did not change this situation significantly. The period of political alliance between big business and government was followed by restoration of state dominance in somewhat modified forms. Both periods were characterized by corruption, which contrary to Putin’s slogans, increases in Russia. In the article I show the evolution of Putin administration’s policy which changed from emphasizing and improving legal institutions to selective use of legal norms depending on personal loyalty. Main forms of state exploitation of Russian business are described. The conclusion is that Russian experience of balancing state and market should be called negative.

Friedrich Schiller: crime, aesthetics, and the poetics of punishment

Schiller's fascination with crime and criminals is well-documented, but little work has been done on his engagement with punishment as retributive or restorative gesture. This study examines the affinity between the pursuit of symmetry in social penal discourse and the symmetry that pleases the aesthetic spectator in Schiller's drama, fiction, and theoretical essays. Beginning with a reassessment of the pivotal essay Die Schaubuehne als eine moralische Anstalt betrachtet, in which Schiller advances the stage as a viable counter to the absolutist state, Hart reads Maria Stuart, Dei Raeube, Fiesko, Verbrecher aus verlorener Ehre, Spiel des Schicksals, Wilhelm Tell, and Die Jungfrau von Orleans, as well as the essays and poetry in light of Schiller's remarkably consistent abhorrence of punishment. A final chapter addresses Schillerian intertextuality in the twentieth century with a focus on Burgess and Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange.

Goethe's "Ilmenau" and the Origins of the Aesthetic State

MATT ERLIN Goethe's "Ilmenau" and the Origins of the Aesthetic State Goethe's 1775 decision to move to Weimar met with skepticism on all sides. Father Johann Caspar Goethe was openly hostile to his son's attachment to the insignificant statelet and its inexperienced duke, and peers wondered why the erstwhile champion of titanic individualism, the affluent citizen of a free imperial city, would willingly subject himself to the constraints of life as a court poet.1 Many believed that his artistic career was over, and the marked decline in literary activity that characterized his first ten years in the duchy seemed to confirm their suspicions. Goethe was far from inactive during this period, but progress on major projects faltered. After finishing the prose version of Iphigenia in 1779 and a satirical adaptation of Aristophanes' The Birds in 1780, he failed to complete any literary work of length for five years.2 Confronted with both the reduction in volume and the shift in the nature of the works produced during these years, scholars have often viewed them as a kind of latency period that comes to an end only with Goethe's 1786 departure for Italy and his equally decisive engagement with the French Revolution.3 The works that were produced during this period, however, deserve closer attention. No one would deny the impact of Italy and the Revolution on Goethe's artistic and intellectual development, but crucial aspects of his later thought, especially as regards the relationship between art and politics, were already taking shape in response to the challenges of this first Weimar decade. W. Daniel Wilson has pointed out this period's significance as it pertains to Goethe's political activity more narrowly defined. As he writes in Das Goethe-Tabu, " [es gab] in politischen Fragen viel mehr Kontinuität zwischen der vorrevolutionären und der revolutionären Zeit... als meist angenommen wird."4 The evidence suggests that a similar claim can be made for his conception of the political function of art, more specifically, for the notion of aesthetic education that evolves into a central pillar of Weimar Classicism. Goethe and Schiller's efforts to cultivate "true humanity" through art must of course be seen in the context of the perceived catastrophe of the Revolution. Nonetheless, Goethe's early Weimar works already reveal an intense engagement with questions regarding the appropriate and inappropriate relationship between the aesthetic and the political spheres. Torquato Tasso, of which two acts had been completed by 1781, constitutes the most obvious example of this Goethe Yearbook XIII (2005) 54 Matt Erlin engagement, but lphigenia aufTauris can also be read as a reflection on the status of the artist-intellectual in the absolutist state.5 The most remarkable lyric investigation of art and politics from this period is to be found in the poem "Ilmenau" composed on the occasion of the duke's twenty-sixth birthday in September 1783- Given the circumstances surrounding the poem's production, it is not surprising that the few existing interpretations of "Ilmenau" have used it primarily to shed light on Goethe's relationship to Carl August, or on the author's state of mind in the early 1780s. In the words of Hans Tümmler, for example, "Ilmenau" solves "das Rätsel dieser Lebensfreundschaft" between poet and duke.6 Subsequent interpretations have recognized the need for new perspectives and have addressed the poem's significance for understanding the evolution of Goethe's aesthetic views, but here as well the primary goal seems to be a reconnection of the poem's pronouncements to specific events and experiences in the author's life.7 A recent essay by Theo Stammen breaks new ground by emphasizing the political and naturalscientific content of the poem. Stammen, however, is less interested in the way in which this content intersects with the implicit poetological reflections contained in the work.8 Yet precisely the complex character of this intersection makes "Ilmenau" unique and justifies an exhaustive interpretation. Although the biographical looms large in the poem, it can also be seen as a reflection on the political function of poetry in the absolutist state. Its self-referential narrative thematizes and problematizes several conceptions...

Kings, nobles and commoners: states and societies in early modern Europe, a revisionist history

Jeremy Black's revisionist history shows that both thrusting bourgeois Protestant states like the Netherlands and Britain prospered and, in Britain's case, became a global power. The reactionary Catholic states like Austria and France at various times remained stable until the deluge of the French Revolution. Absolutism was no myth, but absolutist states still had to rule with consent. Black weaves these themes into a rich and coherent tapestry to give a clear and authoritative picture of the complexities of the early modern period.

Professions, absolutism and the role of widows

This article explores the role of widows in the transfer of occupations from one man to the next. The growing Civil Service is especially focused on, with its conflicts between bureaucratic demands, personal and family considerations, and the absolutist state. Within the Civil Service, as well as within public services connected to private business, succession was modelled after practices in the peasant society and in the urban trades, where a widow could continue in business and hand it over to a new husband, a son-in-law or a son. This solved the problem of support for the widows, by making the next man in office responsible. However, it created other problems, which in turn made the development of public pensions necessary.

Revolutionary Politics in France, 1788-91: the Case of Languedoc

Scholars generally assume that the nobility and bourgeoisie came into conflict in 1789. Yet in many regions, the nobility and bourgeoisie jointly rallied to the banner of Revolution. Nobles gained prestige for having led opposition to arbitrary government in 1788 and 1789. They also seemed to have the wherewithal to contend with popular unrest, which threatened all those who enjoyed a certain ease. Nobles thus won free elections throughout the nine departments of Old Regime Languedoc. They could have led by consent. Yet many nobles provoked enmity by their unwillingness to lead in this consensual manner, dependent on the approval of other property owners. The nobles’ intransigence was a legacy of political and economic relations of the absolutist state that had maintained these nobles’ pre-eminence against possible challenges. The economy and society of the Old Regime thus had a bearing on revolutionary politics.

The Performative State: Semi‑ coloniality and the Tyranny of Images in Modern Thailand*

Previous accounts of the Thai of have been largely ahistorical, presenting the phenomenon as something of a cultural given. This study traces the history of this of power/knowledge and power/prestige and shows that rather than being traditional it took its present form as part of Siam's responses to the encroachment of the Western powers in the nineteenth century. As a modern form of power, the of came Into being as a product of the distinctive character of Siam's semi-colonial relations with the West, Noncolonized Siam did not need to wage a war of independence to expel foreign colonizers. Nevertheless, to preserve national autonomy a new form of local power was called into being, and the of emerges from this strategic mobilization of local power In the service of preserving Siamese independence. The contemporary Thai political system remains authoritarian. To a considerable extent this is a legacy ofthe country's semi-colonial history when, as a strategic response to the challenges that nineteenth century colonialism presented to national autonomy, the absolute monarchy mobilized a new form ofpower to construct a public field of of a civilized Siam. While this regime of images was called into being to placate Western demands for civilized behaviour, it simultaneously realized the potential of the indigenous absolutist state, especially in the sphere ofpublic appearances. In contrast, in the private sphere of everyday life significant disjunctures with public performances of Western-style civilization were often tolerated and

THE RISE OF THE COFFEEHOUSE RECONSIDERED

This article offers a history of British seventeenth-century coffeehouse licensing which integrates an understanding of the micro-politics of coffeehouse regulation at the local level with an analysis of the high political debates about coffeehouses at the national level. The first section details the norms and practices of coffeehouse licensing and regulation by local magistrates at the county, city, and parish levels of government. The second section provides a detailed narrative of attempts by agents of the Restoration monarchy to regulate or indeed suppress the coffeehouses at the national level. The political survival of the new institution is attributed to the ways in which public house licensing both regulated and also legitimated the coffeehouse. The rise of the coffeehouse should not be understood as a simple triumph of a modern public sphere over absolutist state authority; it offers instead an example of the ways in which the early modern norms and practices of licensed privilege could frustrate the policy goals of the Restored monarchy.

The nature of authority: villa culture, landscape, and representation in eighteenth-century Lombardy

Italian villas are generally regarded as beautiful havens where a privileged elite, fleeing the harsh realities of the city, found peace and harmony amid buildings and gardens framed upon classical ideals of proportions, balance, and the natural. In her interdisciplinary book, Dianne Harris presents a view of villa life as it developed during the 18th century on the vast estates dominating the fertile Lombard plain. Governed by Vienna by a Habsburg regime bent upon increased tax revenues, the great landowning families lived lives fraught with tensions and contradictions. Although they retained many privileges and indulged in shows of wealth and social distinction, they faced mounting demands for reform and progress froman absolutist state. This book employs what Harris calls panoramic history to trace the mingling of enlightened reform and a culture of display in the design and functioning of villas and villa life in eighteenth-century Lombardy. Cadastral maps are juxtaposed with Marc Antonio Dal Re's famous prints of the delights of villa life; both are woven in to a wide-ranging investigation of the villas, their gardens,and crop-bearing fields and their representation in visual and written sources from agricultural treatises to books of etiquette. Combing this diverse material with a sharp focus upon the organization of space and class privilege, Harris shows how the villas served as centres of complex cultural and sociopolitical transactions, fashioning a landscape that was once a beguiling vista and a tool in the enforcement of a strict hierarchy of use and value. The book aims to reveal the complicity of landscape in the formation of culture and the structures of everyday life. It also elucidates the significance of Lombardy as a testing ground for Habsburg policies of enlightened reform in the social and natural orders.

Literatur, Politik, Identität — Literature, Politics, Cultural Identity by Leslie Bodi (review)

Reviews n,teratur, Politik, Identit?t ? Literature,Politics, Cultural Identity.By Leslie Bodi. (?sterreichische und internationale Literaturprozesse i8). St Ingbert: R?hrig Universit?tsverlag. 2002. 602 pp. 39,00. isbn 3-861 io-332-x. The editor, Herbert Arlt, and the publisher of the seriesOsterreichische und internationale Literaturprozesse' are to be congratulated for making available the present volume, which assembles a representative selection of German- and English-language essays by Leslie Bodi, almost two thirds of which deal with Austria, togetherwith two autobiographical textsand a bio-bibliography. Ifa collec tion of over thirtyessays, covering fortyyears, does not easily lend itselfto a review, itdoes invite and make possible some observations on the underlying themes that have inspired a life'swork. Leslie Bodi is best known for Tauwetter inWien. ?ur Prosa der ?steneichuchen Aufkl?rungij8i~ijg$ (1977, 2nd edn, 1995), his study of enlightened absolutism in the Habsburg Empire and of the inescapable contradiction between Enlightenment and absolutism revealed by Joseph IPs attempts to introduce reform from above. The concept of 'thaw', coined by Ilya Ehrenburg to capture the hopes for change after the death of Stalin, designates themoment of the opening up of discussion and debate, the emergence of the public sphere and of public opinion as voice and medium of enlightenment. Leslie Bodi's lifeand life'swork have been determined and defined by the Central European traumas of aborted reforms and failed revo lutions, hopeful beginnings and catastrophic conclusions. The key dates of the first half of his lifeare those of Central European and world history. He was born in Budapest in the wake of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the redrawing of state boundaries in the Paris Treaties that paved theway for exacer bated nationalisms, warring ethnicities and genocidal ideologies. The hopes of a new beginning inHungary after 1945 and again in 1956were crushed. The Prague Spring of 1968 confirmed the inability of the Soviet system to reform itselffrom within, to be followed by Gorbachev's belated efforts,which succeeded only in adding a lastword toJoseph's Reformabsolutismus of two hundred years earlier. The equation was still the same: beyond a certain point, beyond the interregnum of the thaw, reform in a closed systemmust lead either to repression (as in theJacobin trials inAustria in 1795) or to disintegration. From the vantage point of 1989 as a new beginning, the history of Central Europe since the eighteenth century can be seen to be marked by the failure of Josephinism, that is, traumatized by the inability to find a way forward to a socio-political anchoring and a cultural embedding of the reformist dynamic of Enlightenment. Central Europe represents in this sense an abortive modernity that succumbed to the fatal flaws of its lineages of absolutism. Ifwe take, as Leslie Bodi does, Josephinism as exemplum and analytic paradigm, then it reveals that the structural constant of the absolutist state fromJoseph toGorbachev is that of an endemic and unresolved tension between universalism and particularism, between Enlightenment-inspired visions of reform and of the rational reconstruction of society, and the reactions and resistances they engendered (cf.p. 316), a tension that 276 Reviews fatally distorted and poisoned both positions and ended in the rival totalitarianisms of international communism and national fascisms. This is the context of the question which runs through this collection of essays ? the question of cultural identity, which acquired a furtherdimension through another beginning, biographi cally themost important, which in 1957 took Leslie Bodi with wife and daughter to a new country,Australia (itselfthe product of a project of Enlightenment social engineering, exacdy contemporary with Joseph's reform programme). The cognitive distance afforded by the study of history was now reinforced by the perspective from outside, dictated by geographical distance. The question of cultural identitywas enriched and complicated by the experience of a migrant society in a process of rapid change towards an increasingly 'multicultural5 self understanding. Australia added a fresh comparative dimension to the study of structural constants and cultural differences in the areas of identity formation, nation-building and nationalism, language policies, social memory and collective forgetting inAustria, Hungary and Germany. Central to these investigations was and is the question ofGerman identity and, by the...