Differentiated Integration Beyond Brexit -
Revisiting Cleavage Perspective in Times of Multiple Crises

By Alexander Radunz, Rafał Riedel
Routledge, 2024

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Immer engere Union?
Differenzierte europäische Integration in der Post-Brexit-Ära – Deutsche und polnische Perspektiven

Von Alexander Radunz, Rafał Riedel
V&R unipress, 2023

Dieses Buch bietet neue Einblicke in den aktuellen Stand der differenzierten Integration in Europa aus der Perspektive Deutschlands, repräsentativ für den inneren Kern der Europäischen Union, und Polens, welches die Semiperipherie vertritt. Als theoretisches Vehikel nutzen die Autoren die innerstaatlichen und transnationalen Konfliktlinien (Cleavages), die durch die kumulativen Krisen der europäischen Integration hervortreten. Sie untersuchen, wie diese die differenzierten Einstellungen von Bürgern und Parteien gegenüber der europäischen Integration in Europa beeinflussen. Folglich liefert dieses Buch eine kohärente interdisziplinäre Studie, welche die klassischen politikwissenschaftlichen Theorien mit den großen Debatten der europäischen Integrationsliteratur verbindet.
This book offers new insights in recent developments in differentiated integration in Europe from the perspective of Germany, representing the inner core of the European Union, and Poland representing the semi-periphery. The authors use the intranational and transnational cleavages which came along with the cumulative crises of the European integration as a theoretical vehicle. They analyse how these crises influence the different positions of citizens and parties in the European Union towards the European integration. Thus, this book provides a coherent interdisciplinary study which connects the classic political theories with the great debates of the European integration literature.
Rafał Riedel ist Politikwissenschaftler und Professor an der Universität Opole, Polen, und Research Fellow an der Diplomatischen Akademie Wien – Vienna School of International Studies. Er habilitierte an der Universität Wrocław und war Gastwissenschaftler an der Universität Oslo, der ETH Zürich und Gastprofessor an der Universität Sankt Gallen.

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The Sound of Habsburg
A Musical History of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

Von Philipp Ther
Suhrkamp, 2025

The Habsburg Empire fell apart as a state in 1918, but it lives on in its music. This book explores why the Habsburg Monarchy was so productive in all walks of culture. It was above all an empire of music, integrated and represented by a huge body of works that forms the core of today’s canon of “classical” music. When this genre emerged, it was not a thing of the past, but new, exciting, and often a motor of history. The book narrates the history of the Habsburg Empire from the Enlightenment to its collapse following the First World War on the basis of more than 200 pieces of music.

In order to provide greater access to the beauty and depth of the music, the book charts new artistic and technological waters. It is conceived as a “musical book” combining the intellectual pleasure of reading with the emotional experience of listening. Each chapter contains five to ten musical examples that can be accessed within seconds via QR codes and listened to as accompaniment to the read. (The playlist will be provided by Idagio, a streaming service specializing in classical music that is being contracted by Suhrkamp, the original German publisher). This combined reading and listening experience is entirely novel and will bring pleasure to many who – similarly to people during the Fin de Siècle period – feel overwhelmed by the multiple crises of our times. However, music is understood not as an escape or a “parallel world” as in the Romantic era and the subsequent century, but as the key to a new exploration and understanding of the history of the Habsburg Empire, which is explored in the context of Europe as a whole and intensified contact with the U.S.

The ten chapters consider every major transformation in the history of the Habsburg Empire from 1780 onwards via music. The journey through the empire begins with the Enlightenment and the cultural hegemony of the aristocracy in the late eighteenth century, Josephinism, and the Napoleonic Wars. Faced with an existential threat, the Habsburgs and the imperial elites reinvigorated the empire with the help of music and a conservative vision for Europe. The musical book continues with the dictatorship of the Biedermeier period, the culturally productivity of modern nationalism, the revolution of 1848/49, and the democratization of the empire that was evident early on in music and its various venues. Later chapters examine relations between the sexes and the concept of free love which renowned composers lived in new and sometimes scandalous fashion, as well as the massive social conflicts that influenced musical life. The musical book also revises common clichés about famous composers, showing that Mozart was indeed not Austrian, that Schubert was a truly political composer, and Czech and Prussians invented the “Vienna Waltz” while the presumable Czech Polka rose to become a global fashion mainly in Vienna. The empire of music did not succumb in 1918; its legacy shaped Czechoslovakia, the Austrian republic, neighboring Germany, and, via the repertoires of concert and opera houses and popular music, the whole world.

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