While a volume of encyclopedic articles consisting exclusively of Catholic bishops, all of whom were obviously men, may seem traditional and possibly outdated, when applied to the Habsburg Empire, especially the Kingdom of Hungary, a rich tapestry of linguistic and ethnic diversity appears. This volume has composed concise biographies of bishops in Hungarian and Slovak dioceses in the Kingdom of Hungary, which today stretch across the current borders of Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. What emerges is a collection of stories about leaders caught up in cultural wars, debates over language in multilingual provinces, and a world transitioning from a feudal one to an industrial one increasingly subjected to the forces of ethnic nationalism.

This volume is the first in a series of future volumes that plan to cover Croatian and Italian dioceses; German, Polish, and Czech dioceses; Greek Catholic dioceses; Romanian and Serbian Orthodox dioceses; and even, ambitiously, Protestant and Muslim leaders. This current volume is organized by archdioceses, followed by the diocese under each archdiocese. The description of each diocese opens with concise historical background, usually dating back to St. Stephen and going into the nineteenth century. These details provide useful clarity about complicated issues in the Hungarian Church regarding appointments and other topics. In addition, relevant demographic information is present about the confessional makeup of each diocese, from Neutra/Nitra/Nyitra, which was 85–90 percent Catholic (111) to Siebenbürgen/Edely (Transylvania), which was 13 percent Catholic (384). The volume also takes linguistic care by providing dioceses with their German, Hungarian, and, when applicable, Slovak names. The volume also provides various other statistics about these bishops and dioceses, such as monies expended on building projects. The use of archival as well as Magyar sources introduces hitherto hard-to-access materials to a wider audience.

While individuals make history, the bishops in this work appear to be swept up by—rather than to initiate—major events, such as the lean years during and after the Napoleonic Wars, the turmoil of the civil war in the Habsburg Empire in 1848/49, the debate over papal infallibility in 1870, the Hungarian cultural wars of the 1890s, Magyarization, and the trauma of the breakup of the Habsburg Empire after 1918. Archdioceses, such as Gran/Esztergom, remained, for example, vacant for years during the Napoleonic Wars. While most bishops remained loyal to the Habsburg dynasty during 1848 and 1849, the experiences of bishops differed. Many fled to Austria under Louis Kossuth's regime, including Dominikus Zichy, whose brother was hanged by the revolutionary Hungarian government in 1848. In the aftermath of 1848, Vienna sacked Hungarian bishops who were either disloyal or insufficiently loyal, such as Josef Rudnyánszky, who participated in a bishops’ conference in Pest that supported the Hungarian government and who called for resistance to Habsburg and Russian troops in 1849; Vincenz Jekelfalusy, who supported Kossuth and published news in his diocese in April 1849 of the Hungarian government in Debrecen dethroning the Habsburgs; Josef Lonovics, who was probably more ambitious than disloyal; and Michael Horvath, who was appointed bishop of Csanad in 1848 but never recognized by Rome. Not surprisingly, most Hungarian bishops also opposed the reforms in the 1890s that introduced civil marriage. The issue of marriage arose as early as the 1830s, as Protestants and Catholics feuded over the conditions for concluding mixed marriages, leading to Franz Lajcsák's contentious letter on this issue that created uproar in Hungary. In the 1890s, bishops, with the notable exception of Johann Ivánkovits, largely opposed the government's imposition of civil marriages. This opposition crystallized into the Catholic People's Party, which received the support of many bishops, particularly Ottokar Prohászka, who also veered into support for antisemitic publications. Finally, many bishops, such as Sigmund Bubics, participated in the process of Magyarization by imposing Magyar in their bishoprics.

This volume, like most works, is not complete without minor questions about it. The introduction of the volume makes a stated goal of incorporating women into this work, though it acknowledges limitations in this endeavor. This lofty goal does not shine through the work, which is not surprising considering that Catholic bishops were (and are) single men. Furthermore, substantial additional relevant information on many of these bishops is available in primary and archival sources; the aim of this volume, however, is not to provide detailed biographies of each bishop, which would make it unwieldy. At more than six hundred pages, readers have plenty of material to digest.

One does not have to read all six hundred pages to get a sense of overall changes throughout nineteenth-century Hungary, which can be seen through the lens of these individual bishops. The summaries of each diocese and the descriptions of various individual processes, such as consecration and funding, provide clarity to the complicated structure of Hungarian Catholicism and its relationship to the Habsburg Empire. Furthermore, this work elucidates the confessional and linguistic diversity of this region as well as the social backgrounds of these bishops. One can look forward to future volumes in this series, which also cover similar diverse confessional and linguistic boundaries of the Habsburg Empire.