From Vienna to Chicago and Back

Essays on Intellectual History and Political Thought in Europe and America

With Forewords by Bernard Bailyn and John Boyer

Cloth $47.50 ISBN: 9780226776361 Published July 2007

E-book $7.00 to $38.00 About E-books ISBN: 9780226776385 Published February 2010

Spanning both the history of the modern West and his own five-decade journey as a historian, Gerald Stourzh’s sweeping new essay collection covers the same breadth of topics that has characterized his career—from Benjamin Franklin to Gustav Mahler, from Alexis de Tocqueville to Charles Beard, from the notion of constitution in seventeenth-century England to the concept of neutrality in twentieth-century Austria.

This storied career brought him in the 1950s from the University of Vienna to the University of Chicago—of which he draws a brilliant picture—and later took him to Berlin and eventually back to Austria. One of the few prominent scholars equally at home with U.S. history and the history of central Europe, Stourzh has informed these geographically diverse experiences and subjects with the overarching themes of his scholarly achievement: the comparative study of liberal constitutionalism and the struggle for equal rights at the core of Western notions of free government. Composed between 1953 and 2005 and including a new autobiographical essay written especially for this volume, From Vienna to Chicago and Back will delight Stourzh fans, attract new admirers, and make an important contribution to transatlantic history.

Review Quotes
Contents

“Gerald Stourzh’s essays are astonishing in scope, erudite, and cosmopolitan, ranging from his intriguing notion of a Tocquevillian ‘moment’ in Western history to his ethical concerns for human rights. His intellectual autobiography at the outset is worth the price of admission alone. The book stands as an elegant monument to a lifetime in transatlantic scholarship.”—Michael Kammen, Cornell University

“Gerald Stourzh’s achievement for more than half a century now is not only to have mastered two historical worlds apparently far removed from one another: the America of Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton on one hand, and the Austria of Emperor Francis Joseph and Karl Renner on the other. He also shows us much intellectual common ground between those worlds, and the autobiographical sketch which introduces this book casts light on his personal odyssey between them. Though these fascinating essays illuminate the contribution of a range of creative individuals from Alexis de Tocqueville to Gustav Mahler and—more improbably—Albert Camus, at their heart lie universal principles of human rights and equality (brought together in the distinctive German term Gleichberechtigung), whose halting development on both sides of the Atlantic over the past 250 years Stourzh has interpreted and advocated with such distinction.”<R. J. W. Evans, University of Oxford>

“Gerald Stourzh is one of the most distinguished historians of the early republic, yet he wears his deep learning lightly. This collection should serve as a reminder of what a great scholar he is.”—Gordon Wood, Brown University

"Written with laudable clarity and precision, [the book] represents a valuable compendium and introduction to the work of this gifted historian of transatlantic legal and political thought."—Richard Schaefer, H-German

"A collection of delightful, and unique, intellectual, political, and historical essays. Far from dry and droll, his essays manage to engage the reader in a dialogue, so while reading diverse and seemingly complex topics. . . readers might feel as if they are in the middle of an intensely personal, albeit intellectual, conversation with Mr. Stourzh."—Henry Gonzalea Grimm, Transforum

"The republication of the essays in book form can only be welcomed. . . . Stourzh's project to write of the Tocquevillian moment in western history . . . unites his historical interests into an overarching synthesis. It constitutes riches indeed."—Jonathan Kwan, H-Review

"[An] erudite and eloquent anthology. . . . [The essays] are amazingly fresh--something that is surely attributable both to the author's erudition and his enthusiasm for the subjects he treats."

"Stourzh has set a high standard of practice for the historical profession. This volume of essays justly celebrates his contributions to U.S. and European history."

"The intellectual originality and meticulous scholarship of the essays in this book attest to Gerald Stourzh's continuing importance as a comparative historian of incomparably deep . . . and unsurpassed dedication to responsible and morally informed scholarship."

"In this dialectic between connection and liberation, order and freedom of will, lies the heart of Stourzh's scholarly passion, and also his moral passion. For him to be so open and articulatte about such deep themes in a retrospective volume of academic essays is testimony to a scholarly life well lived."

Contents

Foreword by Bernard Bailyn
Foreword by John W. Boyer

Introduction: Traces of an Intellectual Journey

Part I: Anglo-American History

1. Reason and Power in Benjamin Franklin's Political Thought (1953)
2. William Blackstone: Teacher of Revolution (1970)
3. Constitution: Changing Meanings of the Term from the Early Seventeenth Century to the Late Eighteenth Century (1988)
4. Charles A. Beard's Interpretations of American Foreign Policy (1957)

Part II: Austrian History - Imperial and Republican

5. The Multinational Empire Revisited: Reflections on Late Imperial Austria (1992)
6. Ethnic Attribution in Late Imperial Austria: Good Intentions, Evil Consequences (1994)
7. The National Compromise in the Bukovina (1996)
8. Max Diamant and Jewish Diaspora Nationalism in the Bukovina (2002)
9. The Age of Emancipation and Assimilation: Liberalism and Its Heritage (2001)
10. An Apogee of Conversions: Gustav Mahler, Karl Krause, and fin de Siècle Vienna (2004)
11. The Origins of Austrian Neutrality (1988)

Part III: The Tocquevillian Moment: From Hierarchical Status to Equal Rights

12. Equal Rights: Equalizing the Individual's Status and the Breakthrough of the Modern Liberal State (1996)
13. Liberal Democracy as a Culture of Rights: England, the United States, and Continental Europe (2000)
14. Tocqueville's Understanding of "Conditions of Equality" and "Conditions of Inequality" (2006)
15. The Unforgivable Sin: An Interpretation of Albert Camus' The Fall (1961)

Appendix: Bibliographical Information
Index of Names
Index of Subjects

For more information, or to order this book, please visit http://www.press.uchicago.edu

History: American History | European History

Philosophy: Philosophy of Society

Political Science: Classic Political Thought

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