Science of State Power in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1790-1880

The formation of modern European states during the long 19th century was a complicated process, challenged by the integration of widely different territories and populations. The Science of State Power in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1790-1880 builds on recent research to investigate the history of statistics as an overlooked part of the sciences of the state in Habsburg legal education as well as within the broader public sphere. By exploring the practices and social spaces of statistics, author Borbala Zsuzsanna Torok uncovers its central role in imagining the composite Habsburg Monarchy as a modern and unified administrative space.