Tropics of Vienna Colonial Utopias of the Habsburg Empire [Hardcover]

The Austrian Empire was not a colonial power in the sense that fellow actors like 19th-century England and France were. It nevertheless oversaw a multinational federation where the capital of Vienna was unmistakably linked with its eastern periphery in a quasi-colonial arrangement that inevitably shaped the cultural and intellectual life of the Habsburg Empire. This was particularly evident in the eras colonial utopian writing, andTropics of Viennablends literary criticism, cultural theory, and historical analysis to illuminate this curious genre. By analyzing the works of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Theodor Herzl, Joseph Roth, and other representative Austrian writers, it reveals a shared longing for alternative social and spatial configurations beyond the concept of the nation-state prevalent at the time.

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1.Leopold von Sacher-Masoch: Utopian Periphery
Chapter 2.Lazar von Hellenbach: Utopia or Theosophy
Chapter 3.Theodor Hertzka: Seeking Emptiness
Chapter 4.Theodor Herzl: Vienna in Palestine
Chapter 5.Robert Mueller: Anti-Exoticism and Joseph Roth: Finis Austriae

Index

Tropics of Viennaadds important insights to existing research on the role of colonialism in Austrian and Viennese culture, especially for scholars and graduate students already familiar with nineteenth-century Habsburg history and culture. Ulrich E. Bach deserves praise for his unceasing effort to complicate terms such as colonialist and utopian via nuanced historical and cultural contextualization&[He] successfully demonstrates how postcolonial approaches to the Habsburg Empire not only shed new light on Austrian history and culture but also contribute to a nuanced rethinkinlCE