Unless one is familiar with recent cultural studies critiques of the ideas surrounding “multiculturalism,” one might be misled by the title of this book, which is based on recent critical assessments in the fields of historical and cultural studies of the nature of multiculturalism. Almost all the participating scholars offer a strong critique—in fact, a strong criticism—of multiculturalism as it has emerged at different times and places in recent history. This multidisciplinary volume is the result of an international research project carried out by the Institute of Culture Studies and Theater History of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, together with the Center for Austrian Studies at the University of Minnesota, as well as of a related conference that took place in 2006.

At the heart of this collection is an attempt to critique both the scholarship and the policies of the rulers of Habsburg Central Europe based on the following narrative: in responding to the real and potential problems of political cohesion that stemmed from the variety of cultures and peoples in the Habsburg lands, administrations drew on policies of multiculturalism, which Austrian contributor Moritz Csáky and editors Gary B. Cohen and Johannes Feichtinger define as a policy that recognizes differences and comes to terms with such differences by privileging them; in so doing, it can also harden and entrench them. The volume contrasts the term multiculturalism with pluriculturalism, a term associated with Csáky. The editors define pluriculturalism as “a descriptive term without the exclusionary and essentialist assumptions that ‘multiculturalism’ often carries in political contexts” (3).

In the volume's introduction, the editors emphasize the goal-oriented nature of the collection and its theoretical foundation. In this research project, they explain, the application of a critique of multiculturalism is no mere exercise: “If contemporary political actors across Europe want to avoid following the old paths charted by nationalist identity policy in attempting to construct a distinct European identity, they should be prepared to develop new approaches while increasing awareness of the lingering effects of nineteenth-century concepts” (9). Working out this theory in relation to history and culture, the essays take a wide variety of approaches, from Anil Bhatti's chapter on “similarities and diversities,” which is based, in part, on a comparison of India and Habsburg Central Europe, to Oto Luthar's analysis of two documents from the pluricultural Habsburg periphery of the Prekmurje section of Slovenia. These fascinating documents offer a look into what it meant to use three and even four languages casually but with intentionality in the course of a single day.

Overall, the methods of the cultural scholars are clearly different from those of the historians, with theory more prominent among the former, who tend to draw more often on sources that are more cultural and literary and less documentary and archival. Certainly, practitioners of the discipline of cultural studies tend to be much more explicit about the theoretical underpinnings of their work. Still, some of the essays display what one might call a pluriculturalist mixing of traditional historical methods with the tools of cultural and literary criticism. Pamela Ballinger's fine essay on multiculturalism and the state in Istria is one of the best examples of this kind of integrated approach. Michael John's historical survey of migration in Austria likewise does an excellent job of blending methods in a narrative and critique of multiculturalism in the context of the closely associated migration of people into and out of Austria. The concluding essay is by Moritz Csáky, whose early work was influential in showing that the conferring of an “identity” in an attempt to address difference only produced much graver problems later on. His complex chapter—a broad cultural critique that is more theoretical in nature—offers multiple insights, including the idea that Habsburg Central Europe was a laboratory for the pluricultural experience.

This array of studies clearly demonstrates that the concept of pluriculturalism stands for more than one concrete phenomenon. But it is likewise clear that these scholars are also discussing the closely related ideas and practices of creating local cultures in an organic way associated not with constructed definitions of “us” and the “other,” but rather with individual decisions, daily life, local compromises, and even practical wisdom. Many of the essays emphasize the role the state has played—not only in the Habsburg lands but also elsewhere—in insisting on categories of “identity” to its own benefit, e.g., to maintain internal order.

Considering the complex theme of the book and its theoretical underpinnings, as well as the variety of fields represented and approaches taken in the essays, it is not surprising that the contributors interpreted the volume's guiding concepts in different ways—hardly unusual in a collection of published conference papers. Some seem to be more focused on the central critique of multiculturalism than others are. Some seem to be more interested in tracing the narrative of multicultural policies rather than in engaging in a full-scale critique of such policies. The challenging interpretive framework of Understanding Multiculturalism reaches well beyond the confines of the historical discipline and the history of Habsburg Europe, but its lessons are especially important for those interested in Central European history, whose history was replete with ethnic, religious, and political diversity.