The study of Habsburg cities has enjoyed a boom over the last decade. Following a period in which metropolitan areas were at the center of attention, an increasing number of regional centers, “second cities,” and even smaller towns have been investigated. This book by Catherine Horel, research director at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), follows this trend by examining multiculturalism in twelve cities across the monarchy. These include four from Cisleithania (Brünn/Brno, Lemberg/L’viv, Czernowitz/Černivci, and Triest/Trieste), seven from Transleithania (Arad, Pozsony/Bratislava, Nagyvárad/Oradea, Temesvár/Timişoara, Szabadka/Subotica, Fiume/Rijeka, and Zagreb), as well as one jointly administered city (Sarajevo). The case studies have been selected to provide a balanced overview of the monarchy about language groups, administration, the history of annexation, and the center-periphery position and proximity to imperial borders. At the same time, Horel explains that she prioritized Transleithanian cities and cities for which little research has been conducted.

Working through various cities of the monarchy, Horel follows the “biography of the town” (városbiográfia), borrowing this term from the Hungarian historian Gábor Gyáni (11). Rather than mythologizing Habsburg multiculturalism, as is often the case in research literature and popular books, her aim is to show the daily lives of places where crossing cultures was an everyday experience. The timeframe focuses on the period following the 1880s, as the first generation to experience the post-1867 education system was coming into adulthood at that time and beginning to influence the public sphere. This generation, Horel argues, was more likely to focus on nationality and national conflicts. However, this distinction must be treated with caution, as this process was socially and geographically diverse. For example, “the commerce and industry chambers of each city remained transnational” (19), the industrial workforce was culturally diverse, and the parties representing them—especially the socialists—refrained from entering the national fight. As workers lived on the city’s outskirts, in the transitional zone between land and city, these can also be understood as transitional spaces in which conflicts could intensify or fail to materialize. The groups that Horel highlights as bringing different cultures to the cities vary. They include military personnel (making up two to ten percent of the population) and Habsburg bureaucrats, as well as prostitutes, wives, and children of civil servants, all of whom regularly crossed these boundaries and transitional zones as they moved across the Monarchy.

As Horel contends, religious groups behaved differently depending on the locality. For example, Jewish populations mostly aligned with the majority, which remained stable in all cities despite policies such as Magyarization and various national movements contesting it. However, in Zagreb, they assimilated with the Croatian population instead (89). Other religious groups also experienced various tensions. For example, in Czernowitz, conflicts arose when the Orthodox bishops were Romanian three times in a row, which was disapproved of by the Ruthenians. However, the Romanians protested when a Ruthenian was elected (132). At the same time, multiconfessional marriages were becoming more frequent, accounting for up to 20 percent of marriages in Temesvar.

The book covers a wide range of topics, from how multiculturalism is experienced and performed to how it is limited and suppressed. In the latter case, Horel examines censorship and its treatment of anti-majority narratives. The press is also one of the focal points for analyzing lived and performed multiculturalism, alongside exhibitions, celebrations, associations, and institutions (such as schools, universities, museums, and theaters). She employs different methodologies, ranging from the history of institutions to the history of memory. The book not only compares the situation in the cities themselves but also provides interesting insights into the differences between Transleithania and Cisleithania (and Bosnia-Herzegovina to some extent). In this way, the book contributes to research on urban environments and is also useful for those wanting to learn about the monarchy as a whole, a subject on which remains fairly fragmented.

The gathering of information from multiple parts of the monarchy is definitely the book’s strong point. At the same time, Horel does not always use the most recent literature. This does not distort her statements but rather affects how finely grained they are. Even though the book is over 500 pages long, one wishes the author would develop her statements more in many places, and at times wishes for more definitive conclusions. However, this is one of the downsides of such a multifaceted comparative project. All in all, the book is a pleasant and informative overview, bringing a great deal of new information into the discussion about late Habsburg cultural life.