Rückkehr unerwünscht

Stephan Steiner

"Rückkehr unerwünscht" (Return Undesired) is the first systematic study on deportation in the Habsburg empire. The measures taken against protestants, deviants and losers in the modernisation process are both delineated in detail and in their european contexts.Concerning the historiography of the Habsburg empire this volume is breaking new ground in respect of deportation. Whereas scholars in the field of Contemporary History tend to view them as merely epiphenomena of totalitarianism, a more closer reconstruction of its "protohistory" reveals it as an instrument of punishment, of demonstration of power and of population policies that were widely and in a rather "modern" way used in the Habsburg Monarchy as early as in the 18th century. The first chapters are focusing on a synoptic view of the major European powers of the Early Modern Period (Portugal, France, Spain, Russia, the...