HIST 346 Triumph and Catastrophe: The Habsburg Empire (1792-1920).
Until its sudden collapse in 1918, the Empire of the Habsburg dynasty dominated the central part of Europe. No less than 12 European states of today share this legacy. Some compare the governance of the "multinational" Habsburg Empire with its complex structure of imperial, national, regional, provincial, and local institutions and their complicated interplay with the current processes and challenges of European integration. But the history of the Habsburg Empire goes way beyond the simplistic tale of growing nationalist tensions which led to the outbreak of the Great War. Austria-Hungary was also a laboratory of modern experience and modern ideas and ideologies, from antisemitism to psychoanalysis - ideas which radically shaped the short and catastrophic 20th century.