Steven Beller

Theodor Herzl (18601904) was the Paris correspondent of the Austrian Neue Freie Presse when he took a momentous decision in June 1895: he would bring about the creation of a state for the Jews. In his attempt to realise this dream, he became the greatest figure of modern Jewish history and is today seen as the father of the State of Israel. The catalyst for Herzls conversion is usually seen as the Dreyfus affair, which made him realise the impossibility of Jewish existence in Europe. The truth is more complicated and perhaps more dramatic, involving Herzls background in the context of central Europes Jewish bourgeoisie, the explosion of anti-Semitism in fin de siecle Paris and Vienna, and not least Herzls own personal frustrations and dreams. Once decided, his state of the Jews was to be not only the solution to the physical threat to the Jews, but it would also liberate them from their ghetto existence, and provide them with the inner freedom which, from personal experience, Herzl thought they lacked. Herzls state was to be a model, liberal society, at the forefront of human progress, integrated and at peace with the world community. A century later, this may look naive - yet, in his vision, Herzl very much speaks to the present age.

Democracy is in crisis. This is a crisis of growth on the one hand, with the Arab Spring and possible change in Burma and elsewhere, but also a crisis of alienation and stagnation in the more established democracies, in the United States and in Europe, where apathy and the uncontrolled power exerted by financial markets and the wealthy are threatening the core of democratic effectiveness and democratic values. We can no longer take democracy for granted, if we ever could, because it is both more powerful and widespread than it has ever been, and more under threat. This short book, of about 25,000 words, spells out the basic characteristics of modern-day democracy, its origins, its history, its current practice and problems, and its potential future.

Para ser un país pequeño y próspero en el centro de Europa, la moderna Austria tiene una historia muy larga y compleja que se extiende mucho más allá de sus actuales fronteras. Los austriacos de hoy tienen una relación problemática con esa historia, ya sea con la historia multinacional de la Monarquía Habsbúrgica como con el periodo entre 1938 y 1945, cuando los austriacos eran alemanes en el Tercer Reich de Hitler. Este exhaustivo y apasionante libro de Steven Beller examina, paso a paso, el extraordinario camino de Austria a través de sus numerosas transformaciones, desde frontera alemana a empresa dinástica, casa imperial, gran potencia centroeuropea, fallida república alpina, provincia alemana y, finalmente, república alpina de éxito, construyendo, capa tras capa, un retrato de la identidad y la herencia de Austria, así como de sus distintas fuentes. Se trata de una historia llena de anomalías y de ironías, el estudio de un caso particular del «otro lado» de la historia europea, sin las respuestas sencillas de otras narraciones claramente nacionales y, por tanto, mucho más relevante para el mundo actual.