A range of books published in the last decade have drawn on the work of Norbert Elias and his idea of the “civilizing process.” In this volume, the authors forward analyses that “move within the horizon of a specific sociological theory; that is, Elias's theory of the civilizing process” (12). Holding fast to “an analytical distinction between a ‘we-identity’ and a ‘national habitus’” (13), the authors aim to “delineate the very different paths by which in Austria and England alike social institutions (particularly institutions of state) affected the experiential worlds of those whose lives they touched” (11), analyzing “‘national character’ both as a ‘dependent’ and ‘independent’ variable” (13) in Austria and England. The authors develop these ideas over nine chapters: an introduction; the rise of the English state (25–67); similarly, the Austrian state (69–113); feudal and clerical patterns of authority in Austria (115–43); feudal paternalism and the “parliamentary society” in England (145–78); institutional forms of power and authority, and rulers and the nobility in Austria (179–214); “indirect rule” and English authority relationships (215–43); bureaucratization as an Austrian civilizing process (245–92); and processes in the “moralization of state authority” and the English habitus (293–323).

What results is a translation of the original German-language edition (Autorität, Staat und Nationalcharakter [Opladen, 2000]) sparingly peppered with emendations and additions. Although some chapters remain true to the original, others have been slightly altered, perhaps attempting to update the text with more recent references. This is the case in chapter 4, for example, when a section-ending paragraph on the “feudal warrior code,” which in the original German considered the place of cricket in the Commonwealth, has been excised in the English, to be replaced by a more brief, and less successful conclusion that seems to serve only in a prefatory manner for the final sentence: “Recently, this is an argument that has also been put forward by Niall Ferguson (2004)” (136). Such may be the case, but any revisions should have included other titles more directly on the subject of this book; two immediately come to mind: Robert Evans, Dusan Kovác, and Edita Ivanicková, eds., Great Britain and Central Europe 1867–1914 (Bratislava: Veda, 2002), and Johannes Feichtinger, Ursula Prutsch, and Moritz Csáky, eds., Habsburg postcolonial: Machtstrukturen und kollektives Gedächtnis (Innsbruck: Studien Verlag, 2003). Publications since the German edition would have buttressed the authors' arguments, and a different editorial decision would have proved helpful. A new introduction, addressing the period between the German and English versions, would have served the purpose well. There are some regrettable elisions and other sections where points might have been even further underscored through development of the comparison. A minor example, but on the very first page of chapter 1, is the reference to “an epic film of iconic stature” (1), Chariots of Fire. Might not the opportunity have been grasped, here or elsewhere, to consider Ernst Marischka's Sissi (1955) and its role in crystallizing, so quickly after the traumas of the National Socialist period, an acceptable view of the Austrian, and imperial, past?

Authority, State and National Character might also have paid closer attention to the shortcomings and oversights of the German. Bibliographically, more apposite material might have been considered. When examining sixteenth-century English history, and particularly patronage and monarchy, one would have expected to see more recent references than MacCaffrey (1961) and Neale (1958) (49, ff.); a mistranslation of the German verb allows the Norwegians to “remain . . . peasant peoples” (243); and the index contains many mistakes. Why, for example, are “Ireland” and “Irish,” referred to with great frequency throughout the volume, omitted? Diacritical marks are absent or inconsistent; “Bismarck, Otto Fuerst von” (352); “Kenez” (97) but “Kenéz” in the index (357), and the “Parallel Campaign” is allowed an entry (359) but without page references.

The organization of chapters and the themes round which they are based gives a first indication of the merits and demerits of this collection, for the volume reads more like a collection of interesting essays than a composite monograph. If the latter was the aim, then it has not succeeded; but this may be harsh criticism, for there is value in the project. In a sense, the lack of direct and detailed historical engagement with the appropriateness or validity of the sample—why exactly Austria is compared with England—is beneficial. Chapters move between locales, considering the rise of English “gentlemanliness” and Austrian “politeness”; English economic development and the resultant impact on the English psyche and Austrian imperial veneration and courtly culture. Historians would immediately look to what exactly is meant by “Austria” in a study of national character and national habitus (Elias's form of “character, which constitutes a form of the civilizing process”) in the light of 1806 and 1867, and they would question the role of England in Great Britain and of England in the empire after 1707 and 1801, respectively. If there was an Austria in the nineteenth century, then it played a very different role within the Austrian, and later Austro-Hungarian, Empire than England did within the British.

The Austrian-Hungarian-Bohemian prism vis-à-vis the English-Irish-Scottish, would have served well, perhaps even better, in a study of national character formation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Such issues find voice in this volume, but more sotto voce than forte. The self-perceptions and retailed representations of Austria, as the country of pietas Austriaca and baroque culture, resting imperially as the fulcrum of the “mildly centripetal agglutination of bewilderingly heterogeneous elements” (R. J. W. Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy [Oxford, 1979], 447), which formed the Habsburg monarchy; and of England, as a state defined by a “Protestant nature” (297, referencing Linda Colley), by “fair play” and gentlemanly ethos, are critiqued by the authors and opened for scrutiny and diagnosis. If Elias is the master, then he is at times a distant one, for his ideas serve more as occasional endorsements, perhaps justifications, for a study that frequently stands convincingly without his assistance. Authority, State and National Character serves as a welcome reminder of the merits of comparative studies and of the role of cultural, political, and economic imitation and emulation in the formation of European national characters.