Pavel Himl, a historical anthropologist and Lecturer in History at Charles University in Prague, has published widely on the policing of marginalized segments of society in the Habsburg monarchy during the early modern period. In his most recent monograph, now translated from the original Czech (Prozorovat, popsat, stvořit. Osvícenská policie a modern stát, 1770–1820, 2019), Himl turns his attention to the evolution of policing and modern administration across three historical epochs. Unfolding around the development of police directorates in the Kingdom of Bohemia, his book is a story of how enlightened reformers conceptualized and built supervisory institutions that produced knowledge about urban and rural populations in the name of efficient management and the promotion of public welfare.

Scholars have long viewed the enlightened state’s project of making populations legible as a cornerstone of modernity. Several commentators—from the Frankfurt School to Michel Foucault and others—view the Enlightenment project with a deep ambivalence; overturning such an entrenched critique is no small feat, but offering an “interpretation” and “rehabilitation” of the Enlightenment and the modern paternalist state is precisely what Himl sets out to do (27). Himl argues that the Habsburg monarchy’s policing apparatus did not act solely as a repressive entity but was productive, flexible, and socially leveling in its attempt to erase arbitrary rule, protect vulnerable individuals, and apply regulations equally throughout all strata of society (20). Himl’s objective, then, is to examine how such policing institutions became “self-evident” in peoples’ everyday lives, incentivizing good behavior while creating space for a freedom of action in ways that we perhaps take for granted (323).

Himl organizes his text around three substantial chapters. These chapters are bookended by two conceptual essays that ponder several weighty questions concerning the extent of police competency and the nature of modern state authority and our relationship to it. In what functions loosely as an introduction and conclusion, Himl addresses a wide variety of twentieth-century theory and engages critically with more recent anthropological work from James C. Scott, David Graeber, and Edward Higgs. Himl takes aim, then, at the disciplinary and repressive model of the modern state—the “Foucauldian Tradition”—as well as anthropologists who, he claims, “romanticize” the pre-modern state (318). Himl argues that the police had liberating and, via popularizers of enlightened reform, educational qualities that protected vulnerable populations and promoted civic engagement by calling citizens into being. Following Edward Higgs’s theory of the “Information State,” Himl also claims that information gathering was not carried out solely for repressive purposes but also provided “benefits” such as protecting property rights, allocating limited resources effectively, eliminating unpredictability, and promoting propriety.

The real strength of Himl’s book, however, lies in his archival base. Himl draws upon several Czech and Austrian regional and state archives—as well as secondary material in four languages—to capture the conceptual evolution and practical implementation of policing tactics in granular detail. In his second chapter, Himl outlines reforms dating back to the mid-eighteenth century that led to the “nationalizing” of existing administrative organs in Bohemia, and, eventually, the organization of police directorates in Prague, Brno/Brünn, and Opava/Troppau by 1785. The establishment and staffing of these agencies with specialized administrators educated in the new “discipline” of Staatswissenschaft created a dense network of professionalized agents that permeated all levels of government and increasingly guaranteed that directives from Vienna would be followed locally (34). Reformers at the time envisioned a new administrative infrastructure that would impact every individual throughout the monarchy equally. Not only that, but Himl claims that the spread of state authority into urban centers and, slowly, rural areas acted as a powerful integrative force for the monarchy.

Himl’s third chapter traces the evolution of urban surveillance tactics, or what contemporaries referred to as the Anziegewesen: the system of passport and travel regulations and city-wide registration of foreigners and, later, locals. Himl is concerned here not only with the “normative aspirations” of these systems but also with how authorities implemented, standardized, and legitimized these new surveillance techniques and how the public reacted to these measures (147). While the upper echelons of society may have found new regulations irritating, Himl argues that rationalizing passport requirements and assigning individuals a “visible and monitorable space” (e.g., assigning house numbers) ensured thorough and timely policing and allowed the state to “create” modern citizens who, as citizens, could interact with and make claims against the state in ways previously not possible (223).

Himl’s fourth chapter brings us solidly into the revolutionary period, when the protection of public order increasingly came to the fore. What constituted threats to public or state security were not givens, and they too had to be constructed by authorities prone to seeing subversive plots wherever they looked, including events such as public performances or popular religious practices. Himl’s concern here is not necessarily the status of concepts such as “disorder,” “rabble,” or “unlawful assembly” as “administrative terms” or “provisions in penal codes” but with how the creation of such terms further legitimated increased police intervention and surveillance after 1790 (234). Himl argues that the identifying and surveilling of individuals or groups now deemed subversive led to a reinforcing pattern that would define policing during the Vormärz: originally established to protect life and liberty, the Habsburg police defined subversion in ways that, in their eyes, necessitated the police’s continued interference in public and political life.

Himl’s book is complex, and his arguments can be difficult to parse at times. A clearer and more forceful argumentative style would have been welcome. Despite that, Himl’s book is a success and a fine example of interdisciplinary and theoretically attuned scholarship, driven by a solid command of the relevant archives. Himl’s research is a major boon to those interested in the history of policing in this period, as well as the relationship between Vienna and its subject territories. Joining other historians—such as the sorely missed Michal Chovjka—Himl has done the invaluable spade work in sketching out the administrative detail of several urban police directorates, including biographical information on each police director between 1785 and 1820. Not least, Böhlau has presented a very handsome edition, complete with full-color images and even a detailed map depicting daily walking routes of police agents (203). Finally, and perhaps most urgently, Himl’s insistence on locating moments of friction between authorities and the public reminds us that policing is a negotiation and a set of practices open to new possibilities.