The authors of this book, an English version of their original Hungarian publication,Footnote ¹ are associates of the Centre for Regional Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. They have already published several joint studies partly dealing with the same topic. Pál BeluszkyFootnote ² is one of the most recognized geographers of Hungary, whose interests in recent years have focused on writing the historical geography of the country. His co-author is the respected young geographer Róbert Győri,Footnote ³ whose major field of study is the transformation of spatial structure in Western Transdanubia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The English version was published approximately at the same time as the original, and they more or less correspond in both form and content. The study is divided into six main chapters: 1. Introduction; 2. Historical preliminaries of the birth of the modern urban network in Hungary; 3. Conditions of urban development in the age of capitalism (to 1914); 4. The hierarchy of Hungarian towns in the early twentieth century; 5. A brief description of the respective levels of the hierarchy; 6. Summary. Except for the Introduction and the Summary, the chapters are divided into further sub-chapters. Róbert Győri is responsible for the computer database and the majority of the calculations, and also for the sections dealing with the types of towns.

The first two chapters provide a brief historical outline of the situation of Hungary as part of the Habsburg Empire, and of the formation of the settlement pattern of the Carpathian Basin. In the third chapter, Beluszky focuses on the preconditions of urban development in the second half of the nineteenth century, giving an outline of the main factors which directly influenced urban development in the late Dualist period. In his opinion, agricultural boom played as important a role in this process as the development of the railway system and the economic-political background established by the Compromise of 1867. Although the economic crisis of 1873 also resulted in a depression which reduced agricultural prosperity, the internal and protected market of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy sheltered the initiatives of urban development against the most damaging effects of the crisis (p. 23). In the Dualist era, administration also played an indispensable role in urban development (p. 32): some regional and county centres were enriched by regional-level institutions, while institutions with urban functions were attached to seats of district administration. In the same chapter, Beluszky sets out to challenge the view that the Great Hungarian Plain was underdeveloped, using statistical indicators appropriate to demonstrating levels of modernization. Although the region was a periphery in terms of development, according to his calculations it was in the phase of ‘take-off’, which explains why modernization, following the ‘principle of hierarchical spread’, also appeared and played a crucial role in towns other than the regional centres (pp. 36–8). Although obviously there is some truth in Beluszky's statement, some of his indicators are open to question, and this could affect the results of the enquiry.

The real message of the book is in the fourth chapter, which concerns the Hungarian urban network in the late Dualist era. The chapter's greatest merit is that it considers not only settlements with the legal status of town, but also those that were functionally urban. Using this definition, some 420–30 settlements (certainly not less than 330) can be considered towns (p. 45), rather than the 139 settlements legally ranking as such, that is at least twice as many as before. This also means that in 1910 the proportion of the population that can be considered urban increases from the previous 20 per cent to 27–9 per cent (pp. 52–3). Based on their calculations, the authors propose an urban hierarchy with six levels: I. Capital city, p. 1; II. Regional centres, pp. 10–12; III. County centres, p. 50; IV. Middling towns, p. 65; V. Small towns, p. 204; VI. Settlements (also) with district-level functions, p. 93. The authors compare their results for 1910 with the calculations for 1828 done by Sándor Gyimesi, and conclude that ‘the “movement” of the urban network at the hierarchical scale was very lively; the positions of approximately 45 per cent of the towns changed considerably’ (p. 67). Nevertheless, ‘we cannot talk about an “exchange” of the Hungarian urban system during the decades of Dualism . . . ; apart from the spectacular fall or rise of a small number of towns, the urban network was rather stable’ (p. 69). In addition they note that, with a few exceptions, the economy of the majority of Hungarian towns was medieval in character, with an insignificant bourgeoisie and low levels of wealth for urban residents. According to their conclusions, the towns ‘were mostly nothing more than settlement (technical?) frameworks for modern urban development . . . The institutions of the bourgeois era, the capital and a significant part of the bourgeois class came “from outside”’ (p. 69). Finally, they strongly emphasize that the fact that ‘the formation of the capitalist urban system used and transformed the frameworks inherited from the feudal times does not mean that the feudal urban system remained unchanged’ (p. 70).

As the discussion above indicates, despite the important, indeed indispensable, new figures and conclusions in the fourth chapter, some problems and debatable points should be noted. One of the most important of these relates to the methodology employed. The authors do not fully explain their procedure (‘inventory method’) and fail to set out an accurate and detailed methodology, so the argument is hard to follow and results cannot be checked. For example, it is not shown how the 88 indicators used for establishing the hierarchical ranking were applied, although there are some hints (p. 44). Nor it is clear where the lines between the ranks of the hierarchy were drawn, nor what exactly was required for the categorization. The reader needs these important details to understand the researchers’ choices and criteria; their absence can only partly be explained by limits of space. Another methodological problem comes up in the assessment of the ‘urban’ population. This is mostly due to the ‘outskirts-population’, the inhabitants of the scattered farms belonging to market towns of great extension (with a diameter of 50–60 kilometres). Beluszky counts these as urban inhabitants, but this view might well be questioned by social historians, as ‘town-dwellers’ living in remote scattered farms may have had only occasional and difficult access to urban goods. Though aware of this social-historical critique of their definition, the authors did not consider it especially significant (p. 82). This rather suggests that, where there is no consensus on interpretation, it is possible to choose a definition that suits the premise to be proven. In consequence, Beluszky's assertion that there are some regions in the Great Plain where the ‘urban’ proportion of the population exceeded 60–70 per cent (p. 57) is debatable, and his new picture of the Great Hungarian Plain as the most advanced region in modernization (p. 39) can also be questioned. It is not necessarily completely inaccurate, but the ‘modernization’ argument does not fully stand either. Similarly, urban values are assessed against a national average (p. 72), rather than a more appropriate regional index, apparently owing to lack of time, though it is true that this might not have made a substantial difference.

The fifth chapter examines briefly the levels of the hierarchy, paying special attention to the unique position of Budapest and the regional centres. The ‘everyday life’ of regional towns at the turn of the century is presented in lively and picturesque fashion, as are the many functions of the centres and some characteristic features of the ‘bourgeoisie’ living there (p. 102). All this is supported by statistical data in charts and diagrams. However, the figures and calculations underlying table 13 give rise to some questions. Notably, the authors’ attribution of day-labourers to the group of ‘tertiary earners’, the service sector, is inappropriate for the Hungarian context, notwithstanding the difficulties inherent in matching contemporary and present-day classifications (regrettably the paragraph which lists the groups belonging to the ‘tertiary sector’ is omitted from the English edition). Another problem harks back to the issue of ‘urban population’ definitions: in the same table on p. 110, the proportion of ‘primary earners’ in Szeged and Debrecen, Great Plain towns with a system of scattered farms of great extension, is much higher than would be the case using an alternative (and more restricted) definition of ‘urban’, though the authors themselves do note this (p. 103). The authors also argue that, in contrast to the important role of county centres, according to their analyses ‘the middle towns did not have a necessary position in the settlement hierarchy of Hungary in the early twentieth century (which is also true today, anyway)’ (p. 120), and emphasize that small towns played a remarkably important role, underlining the rural population's regular need for institutions with small-town functions (p. 122).

The admirable final chapter summarizes the major conclusions of the book in a brief and comprehensible way. The short appendix (pp. 126–8) lists in order the first 62 towns of the hierarchy, with major indicators only, ending with county centres with partial urban functions. The bibliography offers a comprehensive list of the most important Hungarian works dealing completely or in part with the subject, though it omits recent international publications.

All in all, despite the problems already mentioned and the fact that different disciplines might question the approach and results, the book is a well-made, extremely readable work, offering a number of original views and conclusions. It set out to fill a major gap in Hungarian historical geography and achieved, it must be said, no small success. The warm welcome due to this book is only tempered by the fact that in the world of Hungarian social studies there are few similar accessible studies, though it is clear that demand is increasing.