A Concise History of Austria.

A Concise History of Austria. Steven Beller. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]40.00 (US$75.00). xvi + 334 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-47305-5. To write about 'Austria' before 1918 is to write about the Habsburg Monarchy and Mr Beller devotes two-thirds of his book to this period. Arguably there was no 'Austria' before 1918 but only Austrian provinces within the Habsburgs' domains. The author seems rather uneasy with the rise of the Habsburgs and rather hostile to them. He seems to assume that the Monarchy was doomed to collapse: it had 'sufficed' when there was 'no better alternative'. Tragically, as the peoples of the Empire discovered in the 1930s, there wasn't. (One could add that if any Empire seemed doomed in 1914-1918 it was the British.) The 'inevitable' in history does not always happen. There is no reason why the Monarchy could not have adapted to new pressures as it had been doing for centuries. (Karl's proposals were for just such an adaptation.) In 1918 a tragedy began which met its consummation in the Anschluss. Also, to argue that the later Monarchy 'became abnormal, on the wrong side of "Progress"' borders on nonsense. It was the Empire, not Britain, that had universal male suffrage in 1914. (E.B.)