This substantial volume is aptly named. Its twenty-three essays examine the provincial estates of the Habsburg lands acting both in concert with and in opposition to the Habsburg ruler. For a number of years, historical studies have been appearing that record the activities of a proactive nobility during the early modern era when, according to the traditional view, the Habsburg government increasingly “domesticated” its noble subjects and arrogated to itself functions and powers that had been the preserve of provincial estates. Previous treatments, particularly those focusing on the national development of the successor states of the Habsburg monarchy, have often assumed that the estates lost their significance by the second half of the eighteenth century at the latest. Now historians discern in the actions of the estates a functionality beyond that of ineffectual protoparliaments that were stymied by the burgeoning power of the central government. The essays in the current volume originated as papers delivered at a conference on “Partners and Rivals of the Territorial Princes: The Estates in the Habsburg Monarchy in the Early Modern Era (1648–1848),” organized by the Austrian Society for the Study of the Eighteenth Century and held in Vienna at the Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchiv from 22–24 February 2006. In their introduction, the editors review the existing literature and make a strong case for examining closely the activities of the estates. The essays are grouped to illustrate four themes: (1) the structure of the estates, (2) their tasks and spheres of activity, (3) the manner in which the estates viewed themselves and were viewed by others, and (4) corporate “representation” of the estates through the arts. All contributors affirm the value of reexamining the estates' roles, often through scrutiny of neglected primary sources (records detailing the meetings of the estates, their attendees, their outcomes). Taken together, the essays demonstrate the value of a nuanced view of the estates' roles and a skeptical attitude toward traditional depictions of “dualism” and “absolutism.”

A brief review cannot do justice to the meticulous research and analyses of these historians. But a few remarks concerning the content of several essays, rather arbitrarily selected, will illustrate the broad appeal the volume may have for scholars of Habsburg history. Focusing on the first theme, “structure” of the estates, Petr Mat'a's essay (“Wer waren die Landstände?”) describes participants in meetings of the estates from the reign of Ferdinand II to that of Charles VI, giving special attention to the Bohemian Landtag. Mat'a finds that attendance was low and that most participants had ties to both the central government and the estates. Mat'a has acquired significant information about the estates' meetings by taking the trouble to see who was there! Jiří David's essay (“Die Mährischen Landtage in der zweiten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts”) details the manner in which the estates prevented the Habsburg ruler from becoming “absolute.” Their administrative support being essential, the Moravian estates could delay, obstruct, and even foil the monarch's plans. Under the second theme, “tasks of the estates,” William Godsey's essay (“Stände, Militärwesen und Staatsbildung in Österreich zwischen Dreißigjährigem Krieg und Maria Theresia”) finds that Habsburg dependence on the estates led to the development of new administrative organs, particularly to meet military needs. Godsey observes that during the crises of the 1740s, the estates, far from having power and responsibility wrested from them, appeared willing to shift burdens to the central government. The essay by Jörg Deventer (“Adelskonfessionalisierung?”), an example of the book's third theme, introduces two landlords in seventeeth-century Silesia, Counts Nostitz and Hatzfeldt, who were Catholic supporters of Habsburg efforts to win back the region's Protestant population for Catholicism. Neither Nostitz, a resident landlord involved in local affairs, nor the absentee owner Hatzfeldt cared to impose confessional preferences on the population or on fellow nobles in a way that might damage productivity or neighborly relations. Members of the Catholic elite, their behavior was nevertheless shaped by complex factors that merit historians' attention.

The volume offers remarkable diversity. Essays analyze the metaphors of family and the body employed by estates and monarchs to characterize their positions within the body politic (Arno Strohmeyer, “Von Vätern und Köpfen”) and, under the fourth theme of “representation,” political statements conveyed by decorative art and architecture (Friedrich Polleroß, “‘Pro Deo, Caesare et patria’: zur Repräsentation der Stände in Österreich” and Andreas Kusternig, “‘Die Providentia erteilt der Austria den Auftrag zur Weltherrschaft’: Probleme um das Deckengemälde im ‘Großen Saal’ des Niederösterreichischen Landhauses”), as well as by music (Janet Page, “Music and the Estates in the Habsburg Lands in the Eighteenth Century”).

None of these historians claims to offer the last word on this promising area of research. Their essays can serve as points of departure for further investigation into the behavior of the estates, once so vital to the welfare of the Habsburg monarchy.