Fin-De-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture | 
 enlarge | Author: Carl E. Schorske
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $22.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 62107
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st Vintage Book Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 432
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 0394744780
Dewey Decimal Number: 943.61304
EAN: 9780394744780
ASIN: 0394744780
Publication Date: December 12, 1980
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Product Description
A landmark book from one of the truly original scholars of our time: a magnificent revelation of turn-of-the-century Vienna where out of a crisis of political and social disintegration so much of modern art and thought was born.
"Not only is it a splendid exploration of several aspects of early modernism in their political context; it is an indicator of how the discipline of intellectual history is currently practiced by its most able and ambitious craftsmen. It is also a moving vindication of historical study itself, in the face of modernism's defiant suggestion that history is obsolete."
-- David A. Hollinger, History Book Club Review
"Each of [the seven separate studies] can be read separately....Yet they are so artfully designed and integrated that one who reads them in order is impressed by the book's wholeness and the momentum of its argument."
-- Gordon A. Craig, The New Republic
"A profound work...on one of the most important chapters of modern intellectual history" -- H.R. Trevor-Roper, front page, The New York Times Book Review
"Invaluable to the social and political historian...as well as to those more concerned with the arts" -- John Willett, The New York Review of Books
"A work of original synthesis and scholarship. Engrossing."
-- Newsweek
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Enter, stage right, anxiety January 13, 2007
We are drawn to Vienna at the beginning of the 20th century because of Adolf Hitler, as much as or more than by its own curious modes of art, music, architecture, science, literature, city design and medicine. What a strange brew it was!
Cultural historian Schorske has nothing to say about science or medicine or Hitler, and little enough about the setting of his chosen few subjects, despite the word "politics" in the subtitle. The Germans and German Jews of Wien were a small fraction of the population, which was a small fraction of the German-speaking population of the empire, which was in turn a small fraction of the emperor's subjects, who were overwhelmingly Slavs, Hungarians, Romanians. Possibly Schorske could assume his readers would understand that part of the background. It is not so clear that, today, many people understand the makeup of the multinational empire.
To me, the most interesting section of "Fin-de-Siecle Vienna" was the longest chapter, on the building of the Ringstrasse. This effort, permitted but not managed by the sovereign, was, he says, a more complete rebuilding of a capital even than the contemporary work in Paris, done at the behest of an emperor.
In Vienna, the briefly ascendant and confident liberal bourgeoisie did it.
Pause a moment. Schorske uses the word "liberal" without explanation or caveat, but German liberals of Austria were different from other liberals in that they did not embrace the national principle. Schorske mentions this without discussing it, but it is a question whether the Vienna bourgeoisie and its few aristocratic allies can properly be called liberals at all.
In any event, it seems likely that the decay of their political power, leading to the crisis of confidence at the end of the century, was largely caused by the fact that they were not, in fact, liberals. (If they really had been liberals, their power might have decayed even sooner, but that is another issue.)
Schorske attributes all to a failure to continue to believe in progress, history and community; and thus a reaction toward psychology, individualism running to narcissism and despair. Antisemitism rears its ugly head, but Schorske treats it almost as background noise. Soon enough, it would drown out everything.
He examines writers like Hofmannsthal and Schindler, Freud, painters like Kokoscha and Klimt, one composer (Schoenberg) and a host of characters who will be unfamiliar to English readers, like Saar.
It is almost too pat that the Viennese cultural mafia chose a few themes (such as the garden) that Schorske is able to use as threads to weave a remarkably dense, almost impermeable cloth.
Yet the themes seem valid.
Occasionally Schorske descends (or ascends: he is clearly in soaring mode in these episodes) into high-falutin' gobbledygook of the kind all too common in cultural criticism. This goes with the territory, I suppose. (He is also capable, more than once, of astoundingly wrong obiter dicta: "The European mind lost its capacity to project satisfying utopias." This is exactly backwards; Europe was rushing to fall on antisemitic and nationalistic and ideological utopias. What Europe had lost was its capacity to be practical.)
More damaging to the overall persuasiveness of his analysis is his uncritical Freudianism. "Fin-de-Siecle Vienna" was published in 1961 and could hardly have been written even a few years later. Schorske explicitly says that in writing about the various thought-modes of his subjects he is keeping his historian's distance and not embracing any of them. He obviously tries to do this in the chapter about Freud, but later in the book he falls into an (unconscious?) easy Freudianism, chatting blithely about a whole class of men suffering from castration anxiety and similar imaginary maladies.
Ah ,well, the unconscious mind is the universal solvent for the uncritical critic: On the slenderest of evidence, he can attribute motives and causes to his subjects that, by definition, they did not even know about themselves; and assign to them any symbolism and significance he cares to. Schorske is fairly restrained about this with his earlier figures, but with Kokoscha and Schoenberg, anything goes.
In comparison with some other mid-206th century muggers of historiography, Schorske is a mere hubcap-stealer. Still, his brush with psychoanalysis seriously debilitates an otherwise interesting book.
 Need Your Home Interior Remodeled? Call an Historian! January 13, 2005
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
How does an historian, whose job it is to interpret the past, come to terms with a cultural movement built upon the concept of modernity rejoicing in the death of history? This is exactly the question posed by Carl E. Schorske in his book Fin-De-Siecle Vienna Politics and Culture. In a series of essays, which the author admits are not meant to be interlaced, Schorske examines Vienna's cultural reaction to both the decline of Liberalism and the end of the Habsburg Empire. The task of merging politics and culture is not an easy undertaking and the faint-hearted reader should beware. "Just as a knowledge of the critical methods of modern science is necessary for interpreting that science historically," writes Schorske, "so a knowledge of the kinds of analysis practiced by modern humanists is necessary for coming to grips with the makers of twentieth-century non scientific knowledge" (p. xxi). Yet this brand of historical analysis is not that simple as Schorske goes on to explain. It appears, still more separates the historian from the humanist. According to Schorske, a dual approach is required when attempting to analyze cultural history. This binary-method is analogous, he argues, to a vertical and diagonal line. In the "diachronic" or vertical line, the historian more or less places the cultural in its historical context. In the "synchronic" or horizontal line, he or she looks at the relationship of the particular element of culture studied with what else is going on in the world of art, music, literature, and architecture. In a useful analogy, the author believes "The diachronic thread is the warp, the synchronic one is the woof in the fabric of cultural history. The historian is the weaver, but the quality of his cloth depends on the strength and color of the thread" (p. xxii). But what does this all mean? The essays that follow, though providing an enjoyable read, raise some doubts about Schorske's conclusions. The strength lies in the author's ability to place the culture of late nineteenth century Vienna in its historical context. In the opening "Politics and Psyche: Schnitz and Hofmannsthal," Schorske successfully ties the other essays together by introducing the two strands of Austrian fin-de-siecle culture:moralistic-scientific and the aesthetic. A conventional historian may feel more at home with the former, however, the aesthetic aspect is more difficult for many of us, to borrow a trite cliche, to carve in stone. Arguing functionality versus aesthetically appealing, or the placing of ancient Greek statuary on the steps of the Parliament building because Vienna had no past, therefore, it had no political heroes of its own to memorialize in sculpture, needless to say is unconvincing. Since Schorske cites no government documents, to back up his claims of Liberal motives and intentions in urban modernization, for example, his analysis of the connection between politics and culture borders on pure conjecture. The Freudian injection, resulting in the weakest essay of the book should have been omitted. Aside from the above-mentioned flaws, the book is interesting. Schorske's possesses a clear literary style, that helps the reader survive this graduate level sleeper. The addition of color plates, an anachronism in today's budgeted publishing industry was a welcome sight indeed. Yet, one wonders if such abstract concepts as modernity and aesthetics ought to be left to those more qualified outside the historical profession. Such studies, as art criticism itself, surely leave room for varying interpretations that open the doors for open debate.
 Just like a time machine! January 2, 2004
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
Reading Schorske is like riding a time machine to Vienna around the tumultuous late 1800s to 1900. He covers an electic array of topics. However, he has a central focus: to show the radical changes and interconnection between arts & politics at the turn of the century vienna (fin de siecle). But, be warned, Schorske is an intellectual historian, and though his exposition is easy to read, his themes are academic and copiously detailed.
Schorske first lays out the setting of a growing city. He describes the monumental architectural project of the Ringstrasse (the Ring Street around central Vienna) and the rising liberalism and shifting wealth this represented.
The more interesting, and key, episode of the book involves the reactions to this change in Austria, in the form of new politics, anti-semitism, Zionism, and of the ramifications in Arts, Sciences and Music. Specifically, Schorske writes about transformations of viennese politicians, medical doctor Sigmund Freud, artist Gustav Klimt, and musician Arnold Shoenberg. The "vignettes" of these figures are academic and marvelously entertaining. What's surprising is how closely these key figures in 20th century intellectual development were connected; Vienna was a small city, after all. As I said, you'll feel like you're walking through the bustling streets of Vienna, and spotting Freud or Mahler (though Schoerske doesn't cover Mahler) on a leisurely stroll.
 i want to kill myself! November 23, 2003
2 out of 65 found this review helpful
read this book to fall asleep, actaully no, read the chapter on Freud's interpretation of dreams and then fall asleep. in the morning interpret your dreams! a load of mind numbingly boring, non-sesical drivel!
Challenging but exemplary read !! September 11, 2003
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
This is simply a phenomenal book. Schorske jumpstarted an interest in fin-de-siecle Vienna in the 1960's and opened the door for a plethora of scholars to build upon his work. Schorske's ideas are nothing short of brilliant and profound.Granted, this is a tough read. The language is difficult, often verbiose. But never unnecessarily so. The subject matter is intrinsically complex and Schorske's diction only mirrors that. One need not be a specialist to read this, though perhaps a good level of intelligence and fortitude to make it through some very complex ideas. It is a book to be read and re-read, at various intervals in life, particularly after a visit to Vienna where Schorske's words really come to life. I lived in Vienna for two years, and in fact wrote my Masters thesis on the Viennese identity crisis at the fin-de-siecle. Schorske's book is one I can always go back to and still get something out of. It is ever-challenging and ever-fascinating. If you are interested in a particular spin to traditional theories on Viennese modernity, read Jacques LeRider's "Modernity and Identity Crisis," whose thesis is that turn-of-the-century Vienna forshadowed postmodernism. LeRider takes Schorske up several notches, and therefore the two books are good to read one after another. This book in not for everyone, but at the same time I feel it does not exclude either. If you've come across this review with no particular interest in Viennese modernity or intellectual history, I urge you to try this book anyway. It is rich enough to enrapture even the mildly curious mind.
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