This volume of the Austrian History Yearbook, like several recent ones, demonstrates the vigor and originality of current research on the cultural and intellectual history of the lands of the Habsburg monarchy alongside the fruitful continuing work of scholars to develop new understandings of political and social development. In recent years, a growing number of historians of modern Central Europe have turned their attention to religious shrines, political monuments, and public celebrations in the search for deeper understanding of changing popular values, beliefs, and political culture and of modern leisure activities. Alison Frank's article on the development of the pilgrimages to Mariazell takes up the survival and gradual transformation of the pilgrimages to this historic Catholic shrine during the nineteenth century. In this account, tradition and modernity were intertwined in intricate ways as modern transportation technology, capitalism, nature tourism, and evolving modes of Catholic devotion brought new pilgrims.

The articles of Chad Bryant and Michael L. Miller examine ideology, political discourse, and symbols. Bryant reminds us that although mid-nineteenth-century liberals eagerly wanted to remove premodern impediments to political, economic, and social progress, they typically remained cautious about the pace and consequences of change in society. Examining writings about the early development of railroads during the Vormärz by liberal travel writers and journalists in Vienna, Prague, and Brno, Bryant finds a remarkable mixture of hope and anxiety regarding the emerging revolution in transportation. Miller's study of the monument to General Heinrich Hentzi in Budapest shows how this statue, erected in 1852 to commemorate the victory of the Habsburg military forces in the city in spring 1849, became a focus for Hungarian nationalist antagonism toward the central authority of the Habsburg state. The monument remained until 1918, and the long-running debates about it became a prism for Magyar nationalist political culture and discourse during the Dualist era.

The question of how we may best understand the impact of time and place on intellectual inquiry and debate in modern Austria and Hungary takes center stage in the articles of Michael Gubser and Marius Turda. Gubser's article revisits the questions of how historians can most effectively conceptualize Austrian intellectual life at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth and the relationship of Austrian intellectuals to their social and political context. Gubser argues that many historians who have drawn their inspiration and conceptual guides from the models of Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin, William Johnston, William McGrath, and Carl Schorske have oversimplified the relevant contextual elements, often narrowing the field to a singular Viennese cultural setting. Taking the examples of the philosopher Edmund Husserl and the art historian Alois Riegl, Gubser examines the sharply differing contextual elements that helped shape their lives and writings. Taking up public discussions of eugenics in Hungary during World War I, Marius Turda shows how the demographic impact of the war sparked intense new public debates about eugenics that expressed not only concerns about the health of the population and the welfare of society, but ultimately also about the survival of the nation.

The editors are particularly pleased to present two stimulating forum sections. The first forum honors R. J. W. Evans, Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford University, on the thirtieth anniversary of his path-breaking book, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550–1700 (Oxford, 1979). Suitably, the forum casts new light on what Evans identified as the chief factors in forming the early modern Habsburg state: individual rulers and the dynasty, the nobility, and the church, tied together by bonds of law, administrative practice, social customs, and beliefs. The essays by Michael Chisholm, Graeme Murdock, William O'Reilly, Regina Pörtner, and Rona Johnston Gordon offer fascinating insights on individual agents and factors, and the comments of Howard Louthan and Joseph Patrouch locate the fresh findings of these essays in the context of ongoing historiographical development.

The second forum takes up another great concern of the monarchy in the early modern era, the “Ottoman menace”—not as a matter of actual warfare and diplomacy from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, but rather as a factor in historical memory, mythology, and ideology during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Maureen Healy examines the observances in Vienna of the two-hundredth anniversary of the 1683 siege by the Turks, whereas Paul Hanebrink analyzes ideological attitudes that linked the threats of Islam from earlier centuries to the threat posed by communism to Christian civilization in interwar Hungary. Patrick Patterson assesses often contradictory attitudes toward the Ottoman legacy expressed in Croatian historical memory and historiography. This forum is rounded out by comments from Maria Todorova and Larry Wolff, two of the most accomplished students of how Europeans over centuries conceived of their relations with the eastern and southeastern borderlands and the Ottoman Empire.

Continuing the long-standing custom of publishing review essays in the Yearbook, we include three in this volume: John-Paul Himka's on books dealing with Austrian Galicia, Tim Kirk's on the series of studies produced by the Austrian Historians' Commission on Nazi seizures of property and the questions of postwar restitution and compensation, and Peter Thaler's on Scandinavian scholars' recent contributions to Austrian history. Forty-six book reviews conclude this volume.

The editors are pleased to congratulate an author from volume thirty-nine of the Yearbook, Patrice M. Dabrowski, for winning the 2008 R. John Rath Article Prize for her essay, “Constructing a Polish Landscape: The Example of the Carpathian Frontier.”

Several transitions in the Yearbook's editorial team provide a welcome opportunity to acknowledge the greatly valued work of colleagues. With this volume, Daniel Unowsky completes his service as book review editor. The other editors join me in expressing our great admiration and gratitude for his expert work in finding well-qualified scholars to review the varied array of books that come to us and in editing the reviews that have appeared in this and the previous three volumes. Dan's dedication, patience, and efficiency have impressed all of us. In January 2009, Professor Robert Nemes of Colgate University began work as book review editor for volume forty-one. Matthew Konieczny fulfilled with distinction the duties of assistant editor during the early stages of work on this volume. The call of dissertation research in Poland obliged him to leave that position in early summer 2008. Joshua Kortbein, a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of Minnesota, began service as assistant editor in late summer 2008; and all the editors join in expressing our gratitude to him for pulling together the disparate threads involved in the preparation of this volume. Daniel Pinkerton from the Center for Austrian Studies gave us the benefit of his considerable graphical talents in preparing the cover image and other images for inclusion in this volume. We also congratulate and thank the long-time Japanese correspondent for the Yearbook, Professor Atsushi Otsuru, who completed his service with the preparation of volume thirty-nine. A new Japanese correspondent, Professor Hiroko Mizuno of Osaka University, is listed in this volume. As a newly elected member of the executive committee of the Society for Austrian and Habsburg History in 2008, Joseph Patrouch of Florida International University has joined the Editorial Board. The editors and the Center for Austrian Studies are particularly grateful to the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research for supporting financially the positions of associate and assistant editor and to the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York for continuing to subsidize the publication of the Yearbook through the purchase of copies.